ANDREAS  LATZKO 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 
WILLIAM  A.  NITZE 


T-?0 

V 


MEN  IN  WAR 


MEN  IN  WAR 


BY    ANDREAS    LATZKO 


BONI  AND  LIVERIGHT 

NEW  YORK  1918 


Copyright,  1918, 

By 
BONI  AND  LIVERIGHT,  IMC, 


College 
Library 


TT 
2623 

\_35M5E" 


DEDICATED  TO 
FRIEND  AND  FOE 


1CG5687 


"/  am  convinced  the  time  will  come  when 
all  will  think  as  I  do." 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I     OFF  TO  WAR     <"" 11 

II     BAPTISM  OF  FIRE    >"7 51 

III  THE  VICTOR 133 

IV  MY   COMRADE     ^ 167 

V     A  HERO'S  DEATH        207 

VI     HOME   AGAIN  225 


OFF  TO  WAR 


OFF  TO  WAR 

time  was  late  in  the  autumn  of  the 
•••  second  year  of  the  war;  the  place,  the 
garden  of  a  war  hospital  in  a  small  Austrian 
town,  which  lay  at  the  base  of  wooded  hills, 
sequestered  as  behind  a  Spanish  wall,  and  still 
preserving  its  sleepy  contented  outlook  upon 
existence. 

Day  and  night  the  locomotives  whistled  by. 
Some  of  them  hauled  to  the  front  trains  of  sol- 
diers singing  and  hallooing,  high-piled  bales  of 
hay,  bellowing  cattle  and  ammunition  in 
tightly-closed,  sinister-looking  cars.  The  oth- 
ers, in  the  opposite  direction,  came  creeping 
homeward  slowly,  marked  by  the  bleeding 
cross  that  the  war  has  thrown  upon  all  walls 
and  the  people  behind  them.  But  the  great 

madness  raced  through  the  town  like  a  hurri- 

11 


12  MEN  IN  WAR 

cane,  without  disturbing  its  calm,  as  though 
the  low,  brightly  colored  houses  with  the  old- 
fashioned  ornate  facades  had  tacitly  come  to 
the  sensible  agreement  to  ignore  with  aristo- 
cratic reserve  this  arrogant,  blustering  fellow, 
War,  who  turned  everything  topsy-turvy. 

In  the  parks  the  children  played  unmo- 
lested with  the  large  russet  leaves  of  the  old 
chestnut  trees.  Women  stood  gossiping  in 
front  of  the  shops,  and  somewhere  in  every 
street  a  girl  with  a  bright  kerchief  on  her  head 
could  be  seen  washing  windows.  In  spite  of 
the  hospital  flags  waving  from  almost  every 
house,  in  spite  of  innumerable  bulletin  boards, 
notices  and  sign-posts  that  the  intruder  had 
thrust  upon  the  defenseless  town,  peace  still 
seemed  to  prevail  here,  scarcely  fifty  miles 
away  from  the  butchery,  which  on  clear  nights 
threw  its  glow  on  the  horizon  like  an  artificial 
illumination.  When,  for  a  few  moments  at  a 
time,  there  was  a  lull  in  the  stream  of  heavy, 
snorting  automobile  trucks  and  rattling  drays, 
<ind  no  train  happened  to  be  rumbling  over  the 


OFF  TO  WAR  13 

railroad  bridge  and  no  signal  of  trumpet  or 
clanking  of  sabres  sounded  the  strains  of  war, 
then  the  obstinate  little  place  instantly  showed 
up  its  dull  but  good-natured  provincial  face, 
only  to  hide  it  again  in  resignation  behind  its 
ill-fitting  soldier's  mask,  when  the  next  auto- 
mobile from  the  general  staff  came  dashing 
around  the  corner  with  a  great  show  of  im- 
portance. 

To  be  sure  the  cannons  growled  in  the  dis- 
tance, as  if  a  gigantic  dog  were  crouching  way 
below  the  ground  ready  to  jump  up  at  the 
heavens,  snarling  and  snapping.  The  muf- 
fled barking  of  the  big  mortars  came  from  over 
there  like  a  bad  fit  of  coughing  from  a  sick- 
room, frightening  the  watchers  who  sit  with 
eyes  red  with  crying,  listening  for  every  sound 
from  the  dying  man.  Even  the  long,  low  rows 
of  houses  shrank  together  with  a  rattle  and 
listened  horrorstruck  each  time  the  coughing 
convulsed  the  earth,  as  though  the  stress  of 
war  lay  on  the  world's  chest  like  a  nightmare. 

The  streets  exchanged  astonished  glances, 


14  MEN  IN  WAR 

blinking  sleepily  in  the  reflection  of  the  night- 
lamps  that  inside  cast  their  merrily  dancing 
shadows  over  close  rows  of  beds.  The  rooms, 
choke-full  of  misery,  sent  piercing  shrieks  and 
wails  and  groans  out  into  the  night.  Every 
human  sound  coming  through  the  windows  fell 
upon  the  silence  like  a  furious  attack.  It  was 
a  wild  denunciation  of  the  war  that  out  there 
at  the  front  was  doing  its  work,  discharging 
mangled  human  bodies  like  so  much  offal  and 
filling  all  the  houses  with  its  bloody  refuse. 

But  the  beautiful  wrought-iron  fountains 
continued  to  gurgle  and  murmur  compla- 
cently, prattling  with  soothing  insistence  of 
the  days  of  their  youth,  when  men  still  had  the 
time  and  the  care  for  noble  lines  and  curves, 
and  war  was  the  affair  of  princes  and  adven- 
turers. Legend  popped  out  of  every  corner 
and  every  gargoyle,  and  ran  on  padded  soles 
through  all  the  narrow  little  streets,  like  an 
invisible  gossip  whispering  of  peace  and  com- 
fort. And  the  ancient  chestnut  trees  nodded 
assent,  and  with  the  shadows  of  their  out- 


OFF  TO  WAR  15 

spread  fingers  stroked  the  frightened  fa9ades 
to  calm  them.  The  past  grew  so  lavishly  out 
of  the  fissured  walls  that  any  one  coming  within 
their  embrace  heard  the  plashing  of  the  foun- 
tains above  the  thunder  of  the  artillery;  and 
the  sick  and  wounded  men  felt  soothed  and 
listened  from  their  fevered  couches  to  the  talk- 
ative night  outside.  Pale  men,  who  had  been 
carried  through  the  town  on  swinging  stretch- 
ers, forgot  the  hell  they  had  come  from;  and 
even  the  heavily  laden  victims  tramping 
through  the  place  on  a  forced  march  by  night 
became  softened  for  a  space,  as  if  they  had 
encountered  Peace  and  their  own  unarmed 
selves  in  the  shadow  of  the  columns  and  the 
flower-filled  bay-windows. 

The  same  thing  took  place  with  the  war  in 
this  town  as  with  the  stream  that  came  down 
from  out  of  the  mountains  in  the  north,  foam- 
ing with  rage  at  each  pebble  it  rolled  over.  At 
the  other  end  of  the  town,  on  passing  the  last 
houses,  it  took  a  tender  leave,  quite  tamed  and 
subdued,  murmuring  very  gently,  as  if  tread- 


16  MEN  IN  WAR 

ing  on  tiptoe,  as  if  drowsy  with  all  the  dreami- 
ness it  had  reflected.  Between  wide  banks,  it 
stepped  out  into  the  broad  meadowland,  and 
circled  about  the  war  hospital,  making  almost 
an  island  of  the  ground  it  stood  on.  Thick- 
stemmed  sycamores  cast  their  shadow  on  the 
hospital,  and  from  three  sides  came  the  mur- 
mur of  the  slothful  stream  mingled  with  the 
rustling  of  the  leaves,  as  if  the  garden,  when 
twilight  fell,  was  moved  by  compassion  and 
sang  a  slumber  song  for  the  lacerated  men, 
who  had  to  suffer  in  rank  and  file,  regimented 
up  to  their  very  death,  up  to  the  grave,  into 
which  they — unfortunate  cobblers,  tinkers, 
peasants,  and  clerks — were  shoved  to  the  ac- 
companiment of  salvos  from  big-mouthed 
cannon. 

The  sound  of  taps  had  just  died  away,  and 
the  watchmen  were  making  their  rounds,  when 
they  discovered  three  men  in  the  deep  shadow 
of  the  broad  avenue,  and  drove  them  into  the 
house. 

"Are  you  officers,  eh?"  the  head-watchman, 


OFF  TO  WAR  17 

a  stocky  corporal  of  the  landsturm,  with  grey 
on  his  temples,  growled  and  blustered  good- 
naturedly.  "Privates  must  be  in  bed  by  nine 
o'clock."  To  preserve  a  show  of  authority  he 
added  with  poorly  simulated  bearishness: 
"Well,  are  you  going  or  not?" 

He  was  about  to  give  his  usual  order, 
"Quick,  take  to  your  legs!"  but  caught  him- 
self just  in  time,  and  made  a  face  as  though 
he  had  swallowed  something. 

The  three  men  now  hobbling  toward  the  en- 
trance for  inmates,  would  have  been  only  too 
glad  to  carry  out  such  an  order.  However, 
they  had  only  two  legs  and  six  clattering 
crutches  between  them.  It  was  like  a  living 
picture  posed  by  a  stage  manager  who  has  an 
eye  for  symmetry.  On  the  right  went  the  one 
whose  right  leg  had  been  saved,  on  the  left 
went  his  counterpart,  hopping  on  his  left  leg, 
and  in  the  middle  the  miserable  left-over  of  a 
human  body  swung  between  two  high  crutches, 
his  empty  trousers  raised  and  pinned  across 


18  MEN  IN  WAR 

his  chest,  so  that  the  whole  man  could  have 
gone  comfortably  into  a  cradle. 

The  corporal  followed  the  group  with  his 
eyes,  his  head  bent  and  his  fists  clenched,  as 
if  bowed  down  beneath  the  burden  of  the  sight. 
He  muttered  a  not  exactly  patriotic  oath  and 
spat  out  a  long  curve  of  saliva  with  a  hiss  from 
between  his  front  teeth.  As  he  was  about  to 
turn  and  go  on  his  round  again,  a  burst  of 
laughter  came  from  the  direction  of  the  offi- 
cers' wing.  He  stood  still  and  drew  in  his 
head  as  if  from  a  blow  on  the  back  of  his  neck, 
and  a  gleam  of  ungovernable  hatred  flitted 
over  his  broad,  good-natured  peasant  face. 
He  spat  out  again,  to  soothe  his  feelings,  then 
took  a  fresh  start  and  passed  the  merry  com- 
pany with  a  stiff  salute. 

The  gentlemen  returned  the  salute  care- 
lessly. Infected  by  the  coziness  that  hung 
over  the  whole  of  the  town  like  a  light  cloud, 
they  were  sitting  chatting  in  front  of  the  hos- 
pital on  benches  moved  together  to  form  a 
square.  They  spoke  of  the  war  and — laughed, 


OFF  TO  WAR  19 

laughed  like  happy  schoolboys  discussing  the 
miseries  of  examinations  just  gone  through. 
Each  had  done  his  duty,  each  had  had  his  or- 
deal, and  now,  under  the  protection  of  his 
wound,  each  sat  there  in  the  comfortable  ex- 
pectation of  returning  home,  of  seeing  his  peo- 
ple again,  of  being  feted,  and  for  at  least  two 
whole  weeks,  of  living  the  life  of  a  man  who 
is  not  tagged  with  a  number. 

The  loudest  of  the  laughers  was  the  young 
lieutenant  whom  they  had  nicknamed  the  Mus- 
sulman because  of  the  Turkish  turban  he  wore 
as  officer  of  a  regiment  of  Bosnians.  A  shell 
had  broken  his  leg,  and  done  its  work  thor- 
oughly. For  weeks  already  the  shattered 
limb  had  been  tightly  encased  in  a  plaster  cast, 
and  its  owner,  who  went  about  on  crutches, 
cherished  it  carefully,  as  though  it  were  some 
precious  object  that  had  been  confided  to  his 
care. 

On  the  bench  opposite  the  Mussulman  sat 
two  gentlemen,  a  cavalry  officer,  the  only  one 
on  the  active  list,  and  an  artillery  officer,  who 


20  MEN  IN  WAR 

in  civil  life  was  a  professor  of  philosophy,  and 
so  was  called  "Philosopher"  for  short.  The 
cavalry  captain  had  received  a  cut  across  his 
right  arm,  and  the  Philosopher's  upper  lip  had 
been  ripped  by  a  splinter  from  a  grenade. 
Two  ladies  were  sitting  on  the  bench  that 
leaned  against  the  wall  of  the  hospital,  and 
these  three  men  were  monopolizing  the  con- 
versation with  them,  because  the  fourth  man 
sat  on  his  bench  without  speaking.  He  was 
lost  in  his  own  thoughts,  his  limbs  twitched, 
and  his  eyes  wandered  unsteadily.  In  the  war 
he  was  a  lieutenant  of  the  landsturm,  in  civil 
life  a  well-known  composer.  He  had  been 
brought  to  the  hospital  a  week  before,  suffer- 
ing from  severe  shock.  Horror  still  gloomed 
in  his  eyes,  and  he  kept  gazing  ahead  of  him 
darkly.  He  always  allowed  the  attendants  at 
the  hospital  to  do  whatever  they  wanted  to 
him  without  resistance,  and  he  went  to  bed  or 
sat  in  the  garden,  separated  from  the  others 
as  by  an  invisible  wall,  at  which  he  stared  and 
stared.  Even  the  unexpected  arrival  of  his 


OFF  TO  WAR  21 

pretty,  fair  wife  had  not  resulted  in  dispelling 
for  so  much  as  a  second  the  vision  of  the  awful 
occurrence  that  had  unbalanced  his  mind. 
With  his  chin  on  his  chest  he  sat  without  a 
smile,  while  she  murmured  words  of  endear- 
ment; and  whenever  she  tried  to  touch  his  poor 
twitching  hands  with  the  tips  of  her  fingers, 
full  of  infinite  love,  he  would  jerk  away  as  if 
seized  by  a  convulsion,  or  under  torture. 

Tears  rolled  down  the  little  woman's  cheeks 
— cheeks  hungry  for  caresses.  She  had 
fought  her  way  bravely  through  the  zones 
barred  to  civilians  until  she  finally  succeeded 
in  reaching  this  hospital  in  the  war  zone.  And 
now,  after  the  great  relief  and  joy  of  finding 
her  husband  alive  and  unmutilated,  she  sud- 
denly sensed  an  enigmatic  resistance,  an  un- 
expected obstacle,  which  she  could  not  beg 
away  or  cry  away,  as  she  had  used  to  do. 
There  was  a  something  there  that  separated 
her  mercilessly  from  the  man  she  had  so 
yearned  to  see. 

She  sat  beside  him  impatiently,  tortured  by 


22  MEN  IN  WAR 

her  powerlessness  to  find  an  explanation  for 
the  hostility  that  he  shed  around  him.  Her 
eyes  pierced  the  darkness,  and  her  hands  al- 
ways went  the  same  way,  groping  forward 
timidly,  then  quickly  withdrawing  as  though 
scorched  when  his  shrinking  away  in  hatred 
threw  her  into  despair  again. 

It  was  hard  to  have  to  choke  down  her  grief 
like  this,  and  not  burst  out  in  reproach  and 
tear  this  secret  from  her  husband,  which  he  in 
his  misery  still  interposed  so  stubbornly  be- 
tween himself  and  his  one  support.  And  it 
was  hard  to  simulate  happiness  and  take  part 
in  the  airy  conversation;  hard  always  to  have 
to  force  some  sort  of  a  reply,  and  hard  not  to 
lose  patience  with  the  other  woman's  perpet- 
ual giggling.  It  was  easy  enough  for  her. 
She  knew  that  her  husband,  a  major-general, 
was  safe  behind  the  lines  on  the  staff  of  a  high 
command.  She  had  fled  from  the  ennui  of  a 
childless  home  to  enter  into  the  eventful  life  of 
the  war  hospital. 

The  major's  wife  had  been  sitting  in  the 


OFF  TO  WAR  23 

garden  with  the  gentlemen  ever  since  seven 
o'clock,  always  on  the  point  of  leaving,  quite 
ready  to  go  in  her  hat  and  jacket,  but  she  let 
herself  be  induced  again  and  again  to  remain 
a  little  longer.  She  kept  up  her  flirtatious 
conversation  in  the  gayest  of  spirits,  as  if  she 
had  no  knowledge  of  all  the  torments  she  had 
seen  during  the  day  in  the  very  house  against 
which  she  was  leaning  her  back.  The  sad  lit- 
tle woman  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  it 
grew  so  dark  that  she  could  move  away  from 
the  frivolous  chatterbox  unnoticed. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  her  titillating  conversa- 
tion and  the  air  of  importance  with  which  she 
spoke  of  her  duties  as  a  nurse,  the  Frau  Major 
was  penetrated  by  a  feeling  that,  without  her 
being  conscious  of  it,  raised  her  high  above  her- 
self. The  great  wave  of  motherliness  that 
had  swept  over  all  the  women  when  the  fatal 
hour  struck  for  the  men,  had  borne  her  aloft, 
too.  She  had  seen  the  three  men  with  whom 
she  was  now  genially  exchanging  light  noth- 
ings come  to  the  hospital — like  thousands  of 


24  MEN  IN  WAR 

others — streaming  with  blood,  helpless,  whim- 
pering with  pain.  And  something  of  the  joy 
of  the  hen  whose  brood  has  safely  hatched 
warmed  her  coquetry. 

Since  the  men  have  been  going  for  months, 
crouching,  creeping  on  all  fours,  starving,  car- 
rying their  own  death  as  mothers  carry  their 
children;  since  suffering  and  waiting  and  the 
passive  acceptance  of  danger  and  pain  have  re- 
versed the  sexes,  the  women  have  felt  strong, 
and  even  in  their  sensuality  there  has  been  a 
little  glimmer  of  the  new  passion  for  mother- 
ing. 

The  melancholy  wife,  just  arrived  from  a  re- 
gion in  which  the  war  exists  in  conversation 
only,  and  engrossed  in  the  one  man  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  others,  suffered  from  the  sex- 
less familiarity  that  they  so  freely  indulged  in 
there  in  the  shadow  of  death  and  agony.  But 
the  others  were  at  home  in  the  war.  They 
spoke  its  language,  which  in  the  men  was  a 
mixture  of  obstinate  greed  for  life  and  a  para- 
doxical softness  born  of  a  surfeit  of  brutality; 


OFF  TO  WAR  25 

while  in  the  woman  it  was  a  peculiar,  garru- 
lous cold-bloodedness.  She  had  heard  so 
much  of  blood  and  dying  that  her  endless  cu- 
riosity gave  the  impression  of  hardness  and 
hysterical  cruelty. 

The  Mussulman  and  the  cavalry  officer  were 
chaffing  the  Philosopher  and  poking  fun  at 
the  phrase-mongers,  hair-splitters,  and  other 
wasters  of  time.  They  took  a  childish  de- 
light in  his  broad  smile  of  embarrassment  at 
being  teased  in  the  Frau  Major's  presence, 
and  she,  out  of  feminine  politeness,  came  to 
the  Philosopher's  rescue,  while  casting  amor- 
ous looks  at  the  others  who  could  deal  such 
pert  blows  with  their  tongues. 

"Oh,  let  the  poor  man  alone,"  she  laughed 
and  cooed.  "He's  right.  War  is  horrible. 
These  two  gentlemen  are  just  trying  to  get 
your  temper  up."  She  twinkled  at  the 
Philosopher  to  soothe  him.  His  good  nature 
made  him  so  helpless. 

The  Philosopher  grinned  phlegmatically 
and  said  nothing.  The  Mussulman,  setting 


26  MEN  IN  WAR 

his  teeth,  shifted  his  leg,  which  in  its  white 
bandage  was  the  only  part  of  him  that  was  vis- 
ible, and  placed  it  in  a  more  comfortable  posi- 
tion on  the  bench. 

"The  Philosopher?"  he  laughed.  "As  a 
matter  of  fact,  what  does  the  Philosopher 
know  about  war?  He's  in  the  artillery.  And 
war  is  conducted  by  the  infantry.  Don't  you 
know  that,  Mrs.  -  -?" 

"I  am  not  Mrs.  here.  Here  I  am  Sister 
Engelberta,"  she  cut  in,  and  for  a  moment  the 
expression  on  her  face  became  almost  serious. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Sister  Engelberta. 
Artillery  and  infantry,  you  see,  are  like  hus- 
band and  wife.  We  infantrymen  must  bring 
the  child  into  the  world  when  a  victory  is  to 
be  born.  The  artillery  has  only  the  pleasure, 
just  like  a  man's  part  in  love.  It  is  not  until 
after  the  child  has  been  baptized  that  he  comes 
strutting  out  proudly.  Am  I  not  right,  Cap- 
tain?" he  asked,  appealing  to  the  cavalry  offi- 
cer. "You  are  an  equestrian  on  foot  now, 
too." 


OFF  TO  WAR  27 

The  captain  boomed  his  assent.  In  his  sum- 
mary view,  members  of  the  Reichstag  who  re- 
fused to  vote  enough  money  for  the  military, 
Socialists,  pacifists,  all  men,  in  brief,  who  lec- 
tured or  wrote  or  spoke  superfluous  stuff  and 
lived  by  their  brains  belonged  in  the  same  cate- 
gory as  the  Philosopher.  They  were  all 
"bookworms." 

"Yes,  indeed,"  he  said  in  his  voice  hoarse 
from  shouting  commands.  "A  philosopher 
like  our  friend  here  is  just  the  right  person 
for  the  artillery.  Nothing  to  do  but  wait 
around  on  the  top  of  a  hill  and  look  on.  If 
only  they  don't  shoot  up  our  own  men!  It  is 
easy  enough  to  dispose  of  the  fellows  on  the 
other  side,  in  front  of  us.  But  I  always  have 
a  devilish  lot  of  respect  for  you  assassins  in 
the  back.  But  let's  stop  talking  of  the  war. 
Else  I'll  go  off  to  bed.  Here  we  are  at  last 
with  two  charming  ladies,  when  it's  been  an  age 
since  we've  seen  a  face  that  isn't  covered  with 
stubble,  and  you  still  keep  talking  of  that 
damned  shooting.  Good  Lord,  when  I  was  in 


28  MEN  IN  WAR 

the  hospital  train  and  the  first  girl  came  in 
with  a  white  cap  on  her  curly  light  hair,  I'd 
have  liked  to  hold  her  hand  and  just  keep  look- 
ing and  looking  at  her.  Upon  my  word  of 
honor,  Sister  Engelberta,  after  a  while  the 
shooting  gets  to  be  a  nuisance.  The  lice  are 
worse.  But  the  worst  thing  of  all  is  the  com- 
plete absence  of  the  lovely  feminine.  For  five 
months  to  see  nothing  but  men — and  then  all 
of  a  sudden  to  hear  a  dear  clear  woman's  voice  1 
That's  the  finest  thing  of  all.  It's  worth  go- 
ing to  war  for." 

The  Mussulman  pulled  his  mobile  face  flash- 
ing with  youth  into  a  grimace. 

"The  finest  thing  of  all!  No,  sir.  To  be 
quite  frank,  the  finest  thing  of  all  is  to  get  a 
bath  and  a  fresh  bandage,  and  be  put  into  a 
clean  white  bed,  and  know  that  for  a  few  weeks 
you're  going  to  have  a  rest.  It's  a  feeling  like 
— well,  there's  no  comparison  for  it.  But,  of 
course,  it  is  very  nice,  too,  to  be  seeing  ladies 
again." 

The  Philosopher  had  tilted  his  round  fleshy 


OFF  TO  WAR  29 

Epicurean  head  to  one  side,  and  a  moist  sheen 
came  into  his  small  crafty  eyes.  He  glanced 
at  the  place  where  a  bright  spot  in  the  almost 
palpable  darkness  suggested  the  Frau  Major's 
white  dress,  and  began  to  tell  what  he  thought, 
very  slowly  in  a  slight  sing-song. 

"The  finest  thing  of  all,  I  think,  is  the  quiet 
— when  you  have  been  lying  up  there  in  the 
mountains  where  every  shot  is  echoed  back  and 
forth  five  times,  and  all  of  a  sudden  it  turns 
absolutely  quiet — no  whistling,  no  howling,  no 
thundering — nothing  but  a  glorious  quiet  that 
you  can  listen  to  as  to  a  piece  of  music!  The 
first  few  nights  I  sat  up  the  whole  time  and 
kept  my  ears  cocked  for  the  quiet,  the  way  you 
try  to  catch  a  tune  at  a  distance.  I  believe  I 
even  howled  a  bit,  it  was  so  delightful  to  listen 
to  no  sound." 

The  captain  of  cavalry  sent  his  cigarette 
flying  through  the  night  like  a  comet  scatter- 
ing sparks,  and  brought  his  hand  down  with 
a  thump  on  his  knee. 

"There,  there,  Sister  Engelberta,  did  you 


30  MEN  IN  WAR 

get  that?"  he  cried  sarcastically.  '  'Listen  to 
no  sound.'  You  see,  that's  what's  called  phi- 
losophy. I  know  something  better  than  that, 
Mr.  Philosopher,  namely,  not  to  hear  what  you 
hear,  especially  when  it's  such  philosophical 
rubbish." 

They  laughed,  and  the  man  they  were  teas- 
ing smiled  good-naturedly.  He,  too,  was 
permeated  by  the  peacefulness  that  floated  into 
the  garden  from  the  sleeping  town.  The  cav- 
alryman's aggressive  jokes  glided  off  without 
leaving  a  sting,  as  did  everything  else  that 
might  have  lessened  the  sweetness  of  the  few 
days  still  lying  between  him  and  the  front. 
He  wanted  to  make  the  most  of  his  time,  and 
take  everything  easily  with  his  eyes  tight  shut, 
like  a  child  who  has  to  enter  a  dark  room. 

The  Frau  Major  leaned  over  to  the  Phi- 
losopher. 

"So  opinions  differ  as  to  what  was  the  fin- 
est thing,"  she  said;  and  her  breath  came  more 
rapidly.  "But,  tell  me,  what  was  the  most 
awful  thing  you  went  through  out  there  ?  A  lot 


OFF  TO  WAR  81 

of  the  men  say  the  drumfire  is  the  worst,  and 
a  lot  of  them  can't  get  over  the  sight  of  the  first 
man  they  saw  killed.  How  about  you?" 

The  Philosopher  looked  tortured.  It  was 
a  theme  that  did  not  fit  into  his  programme. 
He  was  casting  about  for  an  evasive  reply 
when  an  unintelligible  wheezing  exclamation 
drew  all  eyes  to  the  corner  in  which  the  land- 
sturm  officer  and  his  wife  were  sitting.  The 
others  had  almost  forgotten  them  in  the  dark- 
ness and  exchanged  frightened  glances  when 
they  heard  a  voice  that  scarcely  one  of  them 
knew,  and  the  man  with  the  glazed  eyes  and 
uncertain  gestures,  a  marionette  with  broken 
joints,  began  to  speak  hastily  in  a  falsetto  like 
the  crowing  of  a  rooster. 

"What  was  the  most  awful  thing?  The 
only  awful  thing  is  the  going  off.  You  go  off 
to  war — and  they  let  you  go.  That's  the  aw- 
ful thing." 

A  cold  sickening  silence  fell  upon  the  com- 
pany. Even  the  Mussulman's  face  lost  its 
perpetually  happy  expression  and  stiffened  in 


32  MEN  IN  WAR 

embarrassment.  It  had  come  so  unexpectedly 
and  sounded  so  unintelligible.  It  caught 
them  by  the  throat  and  set  their  pulses  bound- 
ing— perhaps  because  of  the  vibrating  of  the 
voice  that  issued  from  the  twitching  body,  or 
because  of  the  rattling  that  went  along  with 
it,  and  made  it  sound  like  a  voice  broken  by 
long  sobbing. 

The  Frau  Major  jumped  up.  She  had 
seen  the  landsturm  officer  brought  to  the  hos- 
pital strapped  fast  to  the  stretcher,  because 
his  sobbing  wrenched  and  tore  his  body  so  that 
the  bearers  could  not  control  him  otherwise. 
Something  inexpressibly  hideous — so  it  was 
said — had  half  robbed  the  poor  devil  of  his 
reason,  and  the  Frau  Major  suddenly  dreaded 
a  fit  of  insanity.  She  pinched  the  cavalry- 
man's arm  and  exclaimed  with  a  pretense  of 
great  haste: 

"My  goodness!  There's  the  gong  of  the 
last  car.  Quick,  quick,"  addressing  the  sick 
man's  wife,  "quick!  We  must  run." 

They  all  rose.     The  Frau  Major  passed  her 


OFF  TO  WAR  38 

arm  through  the  unhappy  little  woman's  and 
urged  with  even  greater  insistence: 

"We'll  have  a  whole  hour's  walk  back  to 
town  if  we  miss  the  car." 

The  little  wife,  completely  at  a  loss,  her 
whole  body  quivering,  bent  over  her  husband 
again  to  take  leave.  She  was  certain  that  his 
outburst  had  reference  to  her  and  held  a  grim 
deadly  reproach,  which  she  did  not  compre- 
hend. She  felt  her  husband  draw  back  and 
start  convulsively  under  the  touch  of  her  lips. 
And  she  sobbed  aloud  at  the  awful  prospect  of 
spending  an  endless  night  in  the  chilly  neg- 
lected room  in  the  hotel,  left  alone  with  this 
tormenting  doubt.  But  the  Frau  Major 
drew  her  along,  forcing  her  to  run,  and  did  not 
let  go  her  arm  until  they  had  passed  the  sen- 
tinel at  the  gate  and  were  out  on  the  street. 
The  gentlemen  followed  them  with  their  eyes, 
saw  them  reappear  once  again  on  the  street  in 
the  lamplight,  and  listened  to  the  sound  of  the 
car  receding  in  the  distance.  The  Mussul- 
man picked  up  his  crutches,  and  winked  at  the 


34  MEN  IN  WAR 

Philosopher  significantly,  and  said  something 
with  a  yawn  about  going  to  bed.  The  cavalry 
officer  looked  down  at  the  sick  man  curiously 
and  felt  sorry  for  him.  Wanting  to  give  the 
poor  devil  a  bit  of  pleasure,  he  tapped  him  on 
his  shoulder  and  said  in  his  free  and  easy  way : 

"You've  got  a  chic  wife,  I  must  say.  I  con- 
gratulate you." 

The  next  instant  he  drew  back  startled. 
The  pitiful  heap  on  the  bench  jumped  up  sud- 
denly, as  though  a  force  just  awakened  had 
tossed  him  up  from  his  seat. 

"Chic  wife?  Oh,  yes.  Very  dashing!" 
came  sputtering  from  his  twitching  lips  with 
a  fury  that  cast  out  the  words  like  a  seething 
stream.  "She  didn't  shed  a  single  tear  when 
I  left  on  the  train.  Oh,  they  were  all  very 
dashing  when  we  went  off.  Poor  Dill's  wife 
was,  too.  Very  plucky!  She  threw  roses  at 
him  in  the  train  and  she'd  been  his  wife  for 
only  two  months."  He  chuckled  disdainfully 
and  clenched  his  teeth,  fighting  hard  to  sup- 
press the  tears  burning  in  his  threat.  "Roses! 


OFF  TO  WAR  35 

He-he!  And  'See  you  soon  again  1'  They 
were  all  so  patriotic!  Our  colonel  congratu- 
lated Dill  because  his  wife  had  restrained  her- 
self so  well — as  if  he  were  simply  going  off  to 
maneuvers." 

The  lieutenant  was  now  standing  up.  He 
swayed  on  his  legs,  which  he  held  wide  apart, 
and  supported  himself  on  the  cavalry  cap- 
tain's arm,  and  looked  up  into  his  face  expec- 
tantly with  unsteady  eyes. 

"Do  you  know  what  happened  to  him — to 
Dill?  I  was  there.  Do  you  know  what?" 

The  captain  looked  at  the  others  in  dismay. 

"Come  on — come  on  to  bed.  Don't  excite 
yourself,"  he  stammered  in  embarrassment. 

With  a  howl  of  triumph  the  sick  man  cut 
him  short  and  snapped  in  an  unnaturally  high 
voice : 

"You  don't  know  what  happened  to  Dill, 
you  don't?  We  were  standing  just  the  way 
we  are  now,  and  he  was  just  going  to  show  me 
the  new  photograph  that  his  wife  had  sent  him 
— his  brave  wife,  he-he,  his  restrained  wife. 


36  MEN  IN  WAR 

Oh  yes,  restrained!  That's  what  they  all 
were — all  prepared  for  anything.  And  while 
we  were  standing  there,  he  about  to  show  me 
the  picture,  a  twenty-eighter  struck  quite  a 
distance  away  from  us,  a  good  two-hundred 
yards.  We  didn't  even  look  that  way.  Then 
all  of  a  sudden  I  saw  something  black  come 
flying  through  the  air — and  Dill  fell  over  with 
his  dashing  wife's  picture  in  his  hand  and  a 
boot,  a  leg,  a  boot  with  the  leg  of  a  baggage 
soldier  sticking  in  his  head — a  soldier  that  the 
twenty-eighter  had  blown  to  pieces  far  away 
from  where  we  stood." 

He  stopped  for  an  instant  and  stared  at  the 
captain  triumphantly.  Then  he  went  on  with 
a  note  of  spiteful  pride  in  his  voice,  though 
every  now  and  then  interrupted  by  a  peculiar 
gurgling  groan. 

"Poor  Dill  never  said  another  word — Dill 
with  the  spur  sticking  in  his  skull,  a  regular 
cavalry  spur,  as  big  as  a  five-crown  piece.  He 
only  turned  up  the  whites  of  his  eyes  a  little 
and  looked  sadly  at  his  wife's  picture,  that  she 


OFF  TO  WAR  87 

should  have  permitted  such  a  thing  as  that. 
Such  a  thing  as  that  I  Such  a  thing!  It  took 
four  of  us  to  pull  the  boot  out — four  of  us. 
We  had  to  turn  it  and  twist  it,  until  a  piece  of 
his  brain  came  along — like  roots  pulled  up — 
like  a  jellyfish — a  dead  one — sticking  to  the 
spur." 

"Shut  up!"  the  captain  yelled  furiously,  and 
tore  himself  away  and  walked  into  the  house 
cursing. 

The  other  two  looked  after  him  longingly, 
but  they  could  not  let  the  unfortunate  man 
stay  there  by  himself.  When  the  captain  had 
withdrawn  his  arm,  he  had  fallen  down  on  the 
bench  again  and  sat  whimpering  like  a  whipped 
child,  with  his  head  leaning  on  the  back.  The 
Philosopher  touched  his  shoulder  gently,  and 
was  about  to  speak  to  him  kindly  and  induce 
him  to  go  into  the  house  when  he  started  up 
again  and  broke  out  into  an  ugly,  snarling 
laugh. 

"But  we  tore  her  out  of  him,  his  dashing 
wife.  Four  of  us  had  to  tug  and  pull  until 


38  MEN  IN  WAR 

she  came  out.  I  got  him  rid  of  her.  Out 
with  her  I  She's  gone.  All  of  them  are  gone. 
Mine  is  gone,  too.  Mine  is  torn  out,  too.  All 
are  being  torn  out.  There's  no  wife  any  more  I 
No  wife  any  more,  no " 

His  head  bobbed  and  fell  forward.  Tears 
slowly  rolled  down  his  sad,  sad  face. 

The  captain  reappeared  followed  by  the  lit- 
tle assistant  physician,  who  was  on  night  duty. 

"You  must  go  to  bed  now,  Lieutenant,"  the 
physician  said  with  affected  severity. 

The  sick  man  threw  his  head  up  and  stared 
blankly  at  the  strange  face.  When  the  phy- 
sician repeated  the  order  in  a  raised  voice,  his 
eyes  suddenly  gleamed,  and  he  nodded  approv- 
ingly. 

"Must  go,  of  course,"  he  repeated  eagerly, 
and  drew  a  deep  sigh.  "We  all  must  go. 
The  man  who  doesn't  go  is  a  coward,  and  they 
have  no  use  for  a  coward.  That's  the  very 
thing.  Don't  you  understand?  Heroes  are 
the  style  now.  The  chic  Mrs.  Dill  wanted  a 
hero  to  match  her  new  hat.  Ha-ha!  That's 


OFF  TO  WAR  39 

why  poor  Dill  had  to  go  and  lose  his  brains. 
I,  too — you,  too — we  must  go  die.  You  must 
let  yourself  be  trampled  on — your  brains 
trampled  on,  while  the  women  look  on — chic 
—because  it's  the  style  now." 

He  raised  his  emaciated  body  painfully, 
holding  on  to  the  back  of  the  bench,  and  eyed 
each  man  in  turn,  waiting  for  assent. 

"Isn't  it  sad?"  he  asked  softly.  Then  his 
voice  rose  suddenly  to  a  shriek  again,  and  the 
sound  of  his  fury  rang  out  weirdly  in  the  gar- 
den. "Weren't  they  deceiving  us,  eh?  I'd 
like  to  know — weren't  they  cheats?  Was  I  an 
assassin?  Was  I  a  ruffian?  Didn't  I  suit  her 
when  I  sat  at  the  piano  playing?  We  were 
expected  to  be  gentle  and  considerate!  Con- 
siderate! And  all  at  once,  because  the  fash- 
ion changed,  they  had  to  have  murderers.  Do 
you  understand?  Murderers!" 

He  broke  away  from  the  physician,  and 
stood  swaying  again,  and  his  voice  gradually 
sank  to  a  complaining  sound  like  the  thick 
strangulated  utterance  of  a  drunkard. 


40  MEN  IN  WAR 

"My  wife  was  in  fashion  too,  you  know. 
Not  a  tear!  I  kept  waiting  and  .waiting  for 
her  to  begin  to  scream  and  beg  me  at  last  to 
get  out  of  the  train,  and  not  go  with  the  others 
— beg  me  to  be  a  coward  for  her  sake.  Not 
one  of  them  had  the  courage  to.  They  just 
wanted  to  be  in  fashion.  Mine,  too!  Mine, 
too!  She  waved  her  handkerchief  just  like  all 
the  rest." 

His  twitching  arms  writhed  upwards,  as 
though  he  were  calling  the  heavens  to  witness. 

"You  want  to  know  what  was  the  most  aw- 
ful thing?"  he  groaned,  turning  to  the  Philoso- 
pher abruptly.  "The  disillusionment  was  the 
most  awful  thing — the  going  off.  The  war 
wasn't.  The  war  is  what  it  has  to  be.  Did 
it  surprise  you  to  find  out  that  war  is  horrible  ? 
The  only  surprising  thing  was  the  going  off. 
To  find  out  that  the  women  are  horrible — that 
was  the  surprising  thing.  That  they  can 
smile  and  throw  roses,  that  they  can  give  up 
their  men,  their  children,  the  boys  they  have 
put  to  bed  a  thousand  times  and  pulled  the 


OFF  TO  WAR  41 

covers  over  a  thousand  times,  and  petted  and 
brought  up  to  be  men.  That  was  the  sur- 
prise! That  they  gave  us  up — that  they  sent 
us — sent  us!  Because  every  one  of  them 
would  have  been  ashamed  to  stand  there  with- 
out a  hero.  That  was  the  great  disillusion- 
ment. Do  you  think  we  should  have  gone  if 
they  had  not  sent  us ?  Do  you  think  so?  Just 
ask  the  stupidest  peasant  out  there  why  he'd 
like  to  have  a  medal  before  going  back  on  fur- 
lough. Because  if  he  has  a  medal  his  girl  will 
like  him  better,  and  the  other  girls  will  run 
after  him,  and  he  can  use  his  medal  to  hook 
other  men's  women  away  from  under  their 
noses.  That's  the  reason,  the  only  reason. 
The  women  sent  us.  No  general  could  have 
made  us  go  if  the  women  hadn't  allowed  us  to 
be  stacked  on  the  trains,  if  they  had  screamed 
out  that  they  would  never  look  at  us  again  if 
we  turned  into  murderers.  Not  a  single  man 
would  have  gone  off  if  they  had  sworn  never 
to  give  themselves  to  a  man  who  has  split  open 
other  men's  skulls  and  shot  and  bayoneted  hu- 


42  MEN  IN  WAR 

man  beings.  Not  one  man,  I  tell  you,  would 
have  gone.  I  didn't  want  to  believe  that  they 
could  stand  it  like  that.  'They're  only  pre- 
tending,' I  thought.  'They're  just  restrain- 
ing themselves.  But  when  the  first  whistle 
blows,  they'll  begin  to  scream  and  tear  us  out 
of  the  train,  and  rescue  us.'  Once  they  had 
the  chance  to  protect  us,  but  all  they  cared 
about  was  being  in  style — nothing  else  in  the 
world  but  just  being  in  style." 

He  sank  down  on  the  bench  again  and  sat 
as  though  he  were  all  broken  up.  His  body 
was  shaken  by  a  low  weeping,  and  his  head 
rolled  to  and  fro  on  his  panting  chest.  A  lit- 
tle circle  of  people  had  gathered  behind  his 
back.  The  old  landsturm  corporal  was  stand- 
ing beside  the  physician  with  four  sentries 
ready  to  intervene  at  a  moment's  notice.  All 
the  windows  in  the  officers'  wing  had  lighted 
up,  and  scantily  clad  figures  leaned  out,  look- 
ing down  into  the  garden  curiously. 

The  sick  man  eagerly  scrutinized  the  indif- 
ferent faces  around  him.  He  was  exhausted. 


OFF  TO  WAR  43 

His  hoarse  throat  no  longer  gave  forth  a 
sound.  His  hand  reached  out  for  help  to  the 
Philosopher,  who  stood  beside  him,  all  upset. 

The  physician  felt  the  right  moment  had 
come  to  lead  him  away. 

"Come,  Lieutenant,  let's  go  to  sleep,"  he 
said  with  a  clumsy  affectation  of  geniality. 
"That's  the  way  women  are  once  for  all,  and 
there's  nothing  to  be  done  about  it." 

The  physician  wanted  to  go  on  talking  and 
in  conversing  lure  the  sick  man  into  the  house 
unawares.  But  the  very  next  sentence  re- 
mained sticking  in  his  throat,  and  he  stopped 
short  in  amazement.  The  limp  wobbling  skel- 
eton that  only  a  moment  before  had  sat  there 
as  in  a  faint  and  let  himself  be  raised  up  by  the 
physician  and  the  Philosopher,  suddenly 
jumped  up  with  a  jerk,  and  tore  his  arms 
away  so  violently  that  the  two  men  who  were 
about  to  assist  him  were  sent  tumbling  up 
against  the  others.  He  bent  over  with  crooked 
knees,  staggering  like  a  man  carrying  a  heavy 


44 

load  on  his  back.  His  veins  swelled,  and  he 
panted  with  fury : 

"That's  the  way  women  are  once  for  all,  are 
they?  Since  when,  eh?  Have  you  never 
heard  of  the  suffragettes  who  boxed  the  ears 
of  prime  ministers,  and  set  fire  to  museums, 
and  let  themselves  be  chained  to  lamp-posts 
for  the  sake  of  the  vote?  For  the  sake  of  the 
vote,  do  you  hear?  But  for  the  sake  of  their 
men?  No.  Not  one  sound.  Not  one  single 
outcry!" 

He  stopped  to  take  breath,  overcome  by  a 
wild  suffocating  despair.  Then  he  pulled 
himself  together  once  more  and  with  difficulty 
suppressing  the  sobs,  which  kept  bringing  a 
lump  into  his  throat,  he  screamed  in  deepest 
misery  like  a  hunted  animal: 

"Have  you  heard  of  one  woman  throwing 
herself  in  front  of  a  train  for  the  sake  of  her 
husband?  Has  a  single  one  of  them  boxed 
the  ears  of  a  prime  minister  or  tied  herself  to 
a  railroad  track  for  us?  There  wasn't  one  that 
had  to  be  torn  away.  Not  one  fought  for  us 


OFF  TO  WAR  45 

or  defended  us.  Not  one  moved  a  little  fin- 
ger for  us  in  the  whole  wide  world!  They 
drove  us  out!  They  gagged  us!  They  gave 
us  the  spur,  like  poor  Dill.  They  sent  us  to 
murder,  they  sent  us  to  die — for  their  vanity. 
Are  you  going  to  defend  them?  No!  They 
must  be  pulled  out!  Pulled  out  like  weeds, 
by  the  roots !  Four  of  you  together  must  pull 
the  way  we  had  to  do  with  Dill.  Four  of  you 
together!  Then  she'll  have  to  come  out.  Are 
you  the  doctor?  There!  Do  it  to  my  head. 
I  don't  want  a  wife!  Pull — pull  her  out!'* 

He  flung  out  his  arm  and  his  fist  came  down 
like  a  hammer  on  his  own  skull,  and  his 
crooked  fingers  clutched  pitilessly  at  the 
sparse  growth  of  hair  on  the  back  of  his  head, 
until  he  held  up  a  whole  handful  torn  out  by 
the  roots,  and  howled  with  pain. 

The  doctor  gave  a  sign,  and  the  next  mo- 
ment the  four  sentries  were  on  him,  panting. 
He  screamed,  gnashed  his  teeth,  beat  about 
him,  kicked  himself  free,  shook  off  his  assail- 
ants like  burrs.  It  was  not  until  the  old  cor- 


46  MEN  IN  WAR 

poral  and  the  doctor  came  to  their  assistance 
that  they  succeeded  in  dragging  him  into  the 
house. 

As  soon  as  he  was  gone  the  people  left  the 
garden.  The  last  to  go  were  the  Mussulman 
and  the  Philosopher.  The  Mussulman  stopped 
at  the  door,  and  in  the  light  of  the  lantern 
looked  gravely  down  at  his  leg,  which,  in  its 
plaster  cast,  hung  like  a  dead  thing  between 
his  two  crutches. 

"Do  you  know,  Philosopher,"  he  said,  "I'd 
much  rather  have  this  stick  of  mine.  The 
worst  thing  that  can  happen  to  one  out  there 
is  to  go  crazy  like  that  poor  devil.  Rather  off 
with  one's  head  altogether  and  be  done  with 
it.  Or  do  you  think  he  still  has  a  chance?" 

The  Philosopher  said  nothing.  His  round 
good-natured  face  had  gone  ashen  pale,  and 
his  eyes  were  swimming  with  tears.  He 
shrugged  his  shoulders  and  helped  his  com- 
rade up  the  steps  without  speaking.  On  en- 
tering the  ward  they  heard  the  banging  of 


OFF  TO  WAR  47 

doors  somewhere  far  away  in  the  house  and  a 
muffled  cry. 

Then  everything  was  still.  One  by  one  the 
lights  went  out  in  the  windows  of  the  officers' 
wing.  Soon  the  garden  lay  like  a  bushy  black 
island  in  the  river's  silent  embrace.  Only  now 
and  then  a  gust  of  wind  brought  from  the  west 
the  coughing  of  the  guns  like  a  faint  echo. 

Once  more  a  crunching  sound  was  heard  on 
the  gravel.  It  was  the  four  sentries  march- 
ing back  to  the  watch-house.  One  soldier  was 
cursing  under  his  breath  as  he  tried  to  ref  asten 
his  torn  blouse.  The  others  were  breathing 
heavily  and  were  wiping  the  sweat  from  their 
red  foreheads  with  the  backs  of  their  hands. 
The  old  corporal  brought  up  the  rear,  his  pipe 
in  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  his  head  bent  low. 
As  he  turned  into  the  main  walk  a  bright  sheet 
of  light  lit  up  the  sky,  and  a  prolonged  rum- 
bling that  finally  sank  into  the  earth  with  a 
growl  shook  all  the  windows  of  the  hospital. 

The  old  man  stood  still  and  listened  until 
the  rumbling  had  died  away.  Then  he  shook 


48  MEN  IN  WAR 

his  clenched  fist,  and  sent  out  a  long  curve  of 
saliva  from  between  his  set  teeth,  and  muttered 
in  a  disgust  that  came  from  the  depths  of  his 
soul: 
"Hell!" 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE 


II 

BAPTISM  OF  FIRE 

THE  company  rested  for  half  an  hour  at 
the  edge  of  the  woods.  Then  Captain 
Marschner  gave  the  command  to  start.  He 
was  pale,  in  spite  of  the  killing  heat,  and  he 
turned  his  eyes  aside  when  he  gave  Lieutenant 
Weixler  instructions  that  in  ten  minutes  every 
man  should  be  ready  for  the  march  without 
fail. 

He  had  really  forced  his  own  hand  in  giving 
the  order.  For  now,  he  knew  very  well,  there 
could  be  no  delay.  Whenever  he  left  Weixler 
loose  on  the  privates,  everything  went  like 
clock-work.  They  trembled  before  this  lad  of 
barely  twenty  as  though  he  were  the  devil  in- 
carnate. And  sometimes  it  actually  seemed  to 
the  captain  himself  as  though  there  were  some- 
thing uncanny  about  that  overgrown,  bony 

61 


52  MEN  IN  WAR 

figure.  Never,  by  any  chance,  did  a  spark  of 
warmth  flash  from  those  small,  piercing  eyes, 
which  always  mirrored  a  flickering  unrest  and 
gleamed  as  though  from  fever.  The  one  young 
thing  in  his  whole  personality  was  the  small, 
shy  moustache  above  the  compressed  lips, 
which  never  opened  except  to  ask  in  a  mean, 
harsh  way  for  some  soldier  to  be  punished. 
For  almost  a  year  Captain  Marschner  had 
lived  side  by  side  with  him  and  had  never  yet 
heard  him  laugh,  knew  nothing  of  his  family, 
nor  from  where  he  came,  nor  whether  he  had 
any  ties  at  all.  He  spoke  rarely,  in  brief,  quick 
sentences,  and  brought  out  his  words  in  a  hiss, 
like  the  seething  of  a  suppressed  rage ;  and  his 
only  topic  was  the  service  or  the  war,  as  though 
outside  these  two  things  there  was  nothing  else 
in  the  world  worth  talking  about. 

And  this  man,  of  all  others,  fate  had  tricked 
by  keeping  him  in  the  hinterland  for  the  whole 
first  year  of  the  war.  The  war  had  been  go- 
ing on  for  eleven  months  and  a  half,  and  Lieu- 
tenant Weixler  had  not  yet  seen  an  enemy. 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  53 

At  the  very  outset,  when  only  a  few  miles 
across  the  Russian  frontier,  typhus  had  caught 
him  before  he  had  fired  a  single  shot.  Now 
at  last  he  was  going  to  face  the  enemy  1 

Captain  Marschner  knew  that  the  young 
man  had  a  private's  rifle  dragged  along  for  his 
own  use,  and  had  sacrificed  all  his  savings  for 
special  field-glasses  in  order  to  be  quite  on  the 
safe  side  and  know  exactly  how  many  enemy 
lives  he  had  snuff ed  out.  Since  they  had  come 
within  close  sound  of  the  firing  he  had  grown 
almost  merry,  even  talkative,  impelled  by  a 
nervous  zeal,  like  an  enthusiastic  hunter  who 
has  picked  up  the  trail.  The  captain  saw  him 
going  in  and  out  among  the  massed  men,  and 
turned  away,  hating  to  see  how  the  fellow 
plagued  his  poor  weary  men,  and  went  at  them 
precisely  like  a  sheep  dog  gathering  in  the 
herd,  barking  shrilly  all  the  while.  Long  be- 
fore the  ten  minutes  were  up,  the  company 
would  be  in  formation,  Weixler's  impatience 
guaranteed  that.  And  then — then  there 

•_• 

would  be  no  reason  any  more  for  longer  de- 


54  MEN  IN  WAR 

lay,  no  further  possibility  of  putting  off  the 
fatal  decision. 

Captain  Marschner  took  a  deep  breath  and 
looked  up  at  the  sky  with  wide-open  eyes  that 
had  a  peculiarly  intent  look  in  them.  In  the 
foreground,  beyond  the  steep  hill  that  still  hid 
the  actual  field  of  battle  from  view,  the  invis- 
ible machine  guns  were  beating  in  breathless 
haste;  and  scarcely  a  fathom  above  the  edge 
of  the  slope  small,  yellowish-white  packages 
floated  in  thick  clusters,  like  snowballs  flung 
high  in  the  air — the  smoke  of  the  barrage  fire 
through  which  he  had  to  lead  his  men. 

It  was  not  a  short  way.  Two  kilometers 
still  from  the  farther  spur  of  the  hill  to  the  en- 
trance of  the  communication  trenches,  and 
straight  across  open  fields  without  cover  of 
any  kind.  Assuredly  no  small  task  for  a 
company  of  the  last  class  of  reserv- 
ists, for  respectable  family  men  who  had 
been  in  the  field  but  a  few  hours,  and  who 
were  only  now  to  smell  powder  for  the  first 
time  and  receive  their  baptism  of  fire.  For 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  55 

Weixler,  whose  mind  was  set  on  nothing  but 
the  medal  for  distinguished  service,  which  he 
wanted  to  obtain  as  soon  as  possible — for  a 
twenty-year-old  fighting  cock  who  fancied  the 
world  rotated  about  his  own,  most  important 
person  and  had  had  no  time  to  estimate  the 
truer  values  of  life — for  him  it  might  be  no 
more  than  an  exciting  promenade,  a  new  sting 
to  the  nerves,  a  fine  way  of  becoming  thor- 
oughly conscious  of  one's  personality  and 
placing  one's  fearlessness  in  a  more  brilliant 
light.  Probably  he  had  long  been  secretly  de- 
riding his  old  captain's  indecision  and  had 
cursed  the  last  halt  because  it  forced  him  to 
wait  another  half  hour  to  achieve  his  first  deed 
of  heroism. 

Marschner  mowed  down  the  tall  blades  of 
grass  with  his  riding  whip  and  from  time  to 
time  glanced  at  his  company  surreptitiously. 
He  could  tell  by  the  way  the  men  dragged 
themselves  to  their  feet  with  a  sort  of  resist- 
ance, like  children  roused  from  sleep,  that  they 
fully  understood  where  they  were  now  to  go. 


56  MEN  IN  WAR 

The  complete  silence  in  which  they  packed 
their  bundles  and  fell  into  line  made  his  heart 
contract. 

Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  he  had 
been  preparing  himself  for  this  moment  with- 
out relax.  He  had  brooded  over  it  day  and 
night,  had  told  himself  a  thousand  times  that 
where  a  higher  interest  is  at  stake,  the  misery 
of  the  individual  counts  for  nothing,  and  a  con- 
scientious leader  must  armor  himself  with  in- 
difference. And  now  he  stood  there  and  ob- 
served with  terror  how  all  his  good  resolutions 
crumbled,  and  nothing  remained  in  him  but 
an  impassioned,  boundless  pity  for  these  driven 
home-keepers,  who  prepared  themselves  with 
such  quiet  resignation.  It  was  as  if  they  were 
taking  their  life  into  their  hands  like  a  costly 
vessel  in  order  to  carry  it  into  battle  and  cast 
it  at  the  feet  of  the  enemy,  as  though  the  least 
thing  they  owned  was  that  which  would  soon 
be  crashing  into  fragments. 

His  friends,  among  whom  he  was  known  as 
"uncle  Marschner,"  would  not  have  dared  to 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  57 

suggest  his  sending  a  rabbit  he  had  reared  to 
the  butcher  or  dragging  a  dog  that  had  won 
his  affection  to  the  pound.  And  now  he  was 
to  drive  into  shrapnel  fire  men  whom  he  him- 
self had  trained  to  be  soldiers  and  had  had 
under  his  own  eyes  for  months,  men  whom  he 
knew  as  he  did  his  own  pockets.  Of  what  avail 
were  subtle  or  deep  reflections  now?  He  saw 
nothing  but  the  glances  of  dread  and  beseech- 
ing that  his  men  turned  on  him,  asking  pro- 
tection, as  though  they  believed  that  their  cap- 
tain could  prescribe  a  path  even  for  bullets 
and  shells.  And  now  was  he  to  abuse  their 
confidence?  Was  he  to  marshal  these  bearded 
children  to  death  and  not  feel  any  emotion? 
Only  two  days  before  he  had  seen  them  sur- 
rounded by  their  little  ones,  saying  good-bye 
to  their  sobbing  wives.  Was  he  to  march  on 
without  caring  if  one  or  another  of  them  was 
hit  and  fell  over  and  rolled  in  agony  in  his 
blood?  Whence  was  he  to  take  the  strength 
for  such  hardness  of  heart?  From  that  higher 
interest?  It  had  faded  away.  It  was  im- 


58  MEN  IN  WAR 

palpable.  It  was  too  much  a  matter  of  mere 
words,  too  much  mere  sound  for  him  to  think 
that  it  could  fool  his  soldiers,  who  looked  for- 
ward to  the  barrage  fire  in  dread,  with  home- 
ward-turned souls. 

Lieutenant  Weixler,  red-cheeked  and  radi- 
ant, came  and  shouted  in  his  face  that  the  com- 
pany was  ready.  It  struck  the  captain  like  a 
blow  below  the  belt.  It  sounded  like  a  chal- 
lenge. The  captain  could  not  help  hearing  in 
it  the  insolent  question,  "Well,  why  aren't  you 
as  glad  of  the  danger  as  I  am?"  Every  drop 
of  Captain  Marschner's  blood  rose  to  his  tem- 
ples. He  had  to  look  aside  and  his  eyes  wan- 
dered involuntarily  up  to  the  shrapnel  clouds, 
bearing  a  prayer,  a  silent  invocation  to  those 
senseless  things  up  there  rattling  down  so  in- 
discriminately, a  prayer  that  they  would  teach 
this  cold-blooded  boy  suffering,  convince  him 
that  he  was  vulnerable. 

But  a  moment  later  he  bowed  his  head  in 
shame.  His  anger  grew  against  the  man  who 
had  been  able  to  arouse  such  a  feeling  in  him. 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  59 

"Thank  you.  Let  the  men  stand  at  rest.  I 
must  look  after  the  horses  once  more,"  he  said 
in  measured  tones,  with  a  forced  composure 
that  soothed  him.  He  did  not  intend  to  be 
hustled,  now  less  than  ever.  He  was  glad  to 
see  the  lieutenant  give  a  start,  and  he  smiled  to 
himself  with  quiet  satisfaction  at  the  indignant 
face,  the  defiant  "Yes,  sir,"  said  in  a  voice  no 
longer  so  loud  and  so  clear,  but  coming  through 
gnashed  teeth  from  a  contracted  throat. 
The  boy  was  for  once  in  his  turn  to  experience 
how  it  feels  to  be  held  in  check.  He  was  so 
fond  of  intoxicating  himself  with  his  own 
power  at  the  cost  of  the  privates,  triumphing, 
as  though  it  were  the  force  of  his  own  person- 
ality that  lorded  it  over  them  and  not  the  rule 
of  the  service  that  was  always  backing  him. 

Captain  Marschner  walked  back  to  the 
woods  deliberately,  doubly  glad  of  the  lesson 
he  had  just  given  Weixler  because  it  also 
meant  a  brief  respite  for  his  old  boys.  Per- 
haps a  shell  would  hurtle  down  into  the  earth 
before  their  noses,  and  so  these  few  minutes 


60  MEN  IN  WAR 

would  save  the  lives  of  twenty  men.  Per- 
haps? It  might  turn  out  just  the  other  way, 
too.  Those  very  minutes — ah,  what  was  the 
use  of  speculating?  It  was  better  not  to  think 
at  all!  He  wanted  to  help  the  men  as  much 
as  he  could,  but  he  could  not  be  a  savior  to 
any  of  them. 

And  yet,  perhaps?  One  man  had  just  come 
rushing  up  to  him  from  the  woods.  This  one 
man  he  was  managing  to  shelter  for  the  pres- 
ent. He  and  six  others  were  to  stay  behind 
with  the  horses  and  the  baggage.  Was  it  an 
injustice  to  detail  this  particular  man?  All 
the  other  non-commissioned  officers  were  older 
and  married.  The  short,  fat  man  with  the 
bow-legs  even  had  six  children  at  home.  Could 
he  justify  himself  at  the  bar  of  his  conscience 
for  leaving  this  young,  unmarried  man  here  in 
safety? 

With  a  furious  gesture  the  captain  inter- 
rupted his  thoughts.  He  would  have  liked  best 
to  catch  hold  of  his  own  chest  and  give  him- 
self a  sound  shaking.  Why  could  he  not  rid 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  61 

himself  of  that  confounded  brooding  and  pon- 
dering the  right  and  wrong  of  things? 
Was  there  any  justice  at  all  left  here,  here  in 
the  domain  of  the  shells  that  spared  the  worst 
and  laid  low  the  best?  Had  he  not  quite  made 
up  his  mind  to  leave  his  conscience,  his  over- 
sensitiveness,  his  ever-wakeful  sympathy,  and 
all  his  superfluous  thoughts  at  home  along 
with  his  civilian's  clothes  packed  away  in  cam- 
phor in  the  house  where  he  lived  in  peace  times  ? 
All  these  things  were  part  of  the  civil  engi- 
neer, Rudolf  Marschner,  who  once  upon  a  time 
had  been  an  officer,  but  who  had  returned  to 
school  when  thirty  years  old  to  exchange 
the  trade  of  war,  into  which  he  had  wandered 
in  the  folly  of  youth,  for  a  profession  that 
harmonized  better  with  his  gentle,  thoughtful 
nature.  That  this  war  had  now,  twenty  years 
later,  turned  him  into  a  soldier  again  was  a 
misfortune,  a  catastrophe  which  had  overtaken 
him,  as  it  had  all  the  others,  without  any  fault 
of  his  or  theirs.  Yet  there  was  nothing  to  do 
but  to  reconcile  himself  to  it;  and  first  of  all  he 


62  MEN  IN  WAR 

had  to  avoid  that  constant  hair-splitting.  Why 
torment  himself  so  with  questions?  Some  man 
had  to  stay  behind  in  the  woods  as  a  guard. 
The  commander  had  decided  on  the  young  ser- 
geant, and  the  young  sergeant  would  stay  be- 
hind. That  settled  it. 

The  painful  thing  was  the  way  the  fellow's 
face  so  plainly  showed  his  emotion.  His  eyes 
moistened  and  looked  at  the  captain  in  dog- 
like  gratitude.  Disgusting,  simply  disgusting! 
And  what  possessed  the  man  to  stammer  out 
something  about  his  mother?  He  was  to  stay 
behind  because  the  service  required  it;  his 
mother  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  She  was 
safe  in  Vienna — and  here  it  was  war. 

The  captain  told  the  man  so.  He  could  not 
let  him  think  it  was  a  bit  of  good  fortune,  a 
special  dispensation,  not  to  have  to  go  into 
battle. 

Captain  Marschner  felt  easier  the  minute  he 
had  finished  scolding  the  crushed  sinner.  His 
conscience  was  now  quite  clear,  just  as  though 
it  had  really  been  by  chance  that  he  had 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  63 

placed  the  man  at  that  post.  But  the  feeling 
did  not  last  very  long.  The  silly  fellow  would 
not  give  up  adoring  him  as  his  savior.  And 
when  he  stammered,  "I  take  the  liberty  of  wish- 
ing you  good  luck,  Captain,"  standing  in  stiff 
military  attitude,  but  in  a  voice  hoarse  and 
quivering  from  suppressed  tears,  such  fervor, 
such  ardent  devotion  radiated  from  his  wish 
that  the  captain  suddenly  felt  a  strange  empti- 
ness again  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach,  and  he 
turned  sharply  and  walked  away. 

Now  he  knew.  Now  he  could  approxi- 
mately calculate  all  the  things  Weixler  had 
observed  in  him.  Now  he  could  guess  how  the 
fellow  must  have  made  secret  fun  of  his  sen- 
sitiveness, if  this  simple  man,  this  mere  car- 
penter's journeyman,  could  guess  his  inner- 
most thoughts.  For  he  had  not  spoken  to  him 
once — simply  the  night  before  last,  at  the  en- 
trainment  in  Vienna,  he  had  furtively  ob- 
served his  leavetaking  from  his  mother.  How 
had  the  confounded  fellow  come  to  suspect 
that  the  wizened,  shrunken  little  old  hag  whose 


64  MEN  IN  WAR 

skin,  dried  by  long  living,  hung  in  a  thousand 
loose  folds  from  her  cheek-bones,  had  made 
such  an  impression  on  his  captain?  The  man 
himself  certainly  did  not  know  how  touch- 
ing it  looked  when  the  tiny  mother  gazed 
up  at  him  from  below  and  stroked  his  broad 
chest  with  her  trembling  hand  because  she 
could  not  reach  his  face.  No  one  could  have 
betrayed  to  the  soldier  that  since  then,  when- 
ever his  company  commander  looked  at  him, 
he  could  not  help  seeing  the  lemon-hued,  thick- 
veined  hand  with  its  knotted,  distorted  fingers, 
which  had  touched  the  rough,  hairy  cloth  with 
such  ineffable  love.  And  yet,  somehow,  the 
rascal  had  discovered  that  this  hand  floated 
above  him  protectingly,  that  it  prayed  for  him 
and  had  softened  the  heart  of  his  officer. 

Marschner  tramped  across  the  meadow  in 
rage  against  himself.  He  was  as  ashamed  as 
though  some  one  had  torn  a  mask  from  his 
face.  Was  it  as  easy  as  that  to  see  through 
him,  then,  in  spite  of  all  the  trouble  he  took? 
He  stopped  to  get  his  breath,  hewed  at  the 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  65 

grass  again  with  his  riding  whip,  and  cursed 
aloud.  Oh,  well,  he  simply  couldn't  act  a  part, 
couldn't  step  out  of  his  skin  suddenly,  even 
though  there  was  a  world  war  a  thousand  times 
over.  He  used  to  let  his  nephews  and  nieces 
twist  him  round  their  fingers,  and  laughed 
good-naturedly  when  they  did  it.  In  a  single 
day  he  could  not  change  into  a  fire-eater  and 
go  merrily  upon  the  man-hunt.  What  an  ut- 
terly mad  idea  it  was,  too,  to  try  to  cast  all 
people  into  the  same  mould !  No  one  dreamed 
of  making  a  soft-hearted  philanthropist  of 
Weixler;  and  he  was  supposed  so  lightly  to 
turn  straight  into  a  blood-thirsty  militarist. 
He  was  no  longer  twenty,  like  Weix- 
ler, and  these  sad,  silent  men  who  had  been  so 
cruelly  uprooted  from  their  lives  were  each  of 
them  far  more  to  him  than  a  mere  rifle  to  be 
sent  to  the  repair  shop  if  broken,  or  to  be  in- 
differently discarded  if  smashed  beyond  re- 
pair. Whoever  had  looked  on  life  from  all 
sides  and  reflected  upon  it  could  not  so  easily 
turn  into  the  mere  soldier,  like  his  lieutenant, 


66  MEN  IN  WAR 

who  had  not  been  humanized  yet,  nor  seen  the 
world  from  any  point  of  view  but  the  military 
school  and  the  barracks. 

Ah,  yes,  if  conditions  still  were  as  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war,  when  none  but  young  fel- 
lows, happy  to  be  off  on  an  adventure,  hal- 
looed from  the  train  windows.  If  they  left 
any  dear  ones  at  all  behind,  they  were  only 
their  parents,  and  here  at  last  was  a  chance  to 
make  a  great  impression  on  the  old  folks. 
Then  Captain  Marschner  would  have  held  his 
own  as  well  as  anyone,  as  well  even  as  the  strict 
disciplinarian,  Lieutenant  Weixler,  perhaps 
even  better.  Then  the  men  marched  two  or 
three  weeks  before  coming  upon  the  enemy, 
and  the  links  that  bound  them  to  life  broke  off 
one  at  a  time.  They  underwent  a  thousand 
difficulties  and  deprivations,  until  under  the 
stress  of  hunger  and  thirst  and  weariness  they 
gradually  forgot  everything  they  had  left  far 
— far  behind.  In  those  days  hatred  of  the 
enemy  who  had  done  them  all  that  harm 
smouldered  and  flared  higher  every  day,  while 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  67 

actual  battle  was  a  relief  after  the  long  period 
of  passive  suffering. 

But  now  things  went  like  lightning.  Day 
before  yesterday  in  Vienna  still — and  now, 
with  the  farewell  kisses  still  on  one's  lips, 
scarcely  torn  from  another's  arms,  straight  into 
the  fire.  And  not  blindly,  unsuspectingly,  like 
the  first  ones.  For  these  poor  devils  now 
the  war  had  no  secrets  left.  Each  of  them  had 
already  lost  some  relative  or  friend;  each 
had  talked  to  wounded  men,  had  seen  mutil- 
ated, distorted  invalids,  and  knew  more  about 
shell  wounds,  gas  grenades,  and  liquid  fire  than 
artillery  generals  or  staff  physicians  had  known 
before  the  war. 

And  now  it  was  the  captain's  lot  to  lead 
precisely  these  clairvoyants,  these  men  so 
rudely  torn  up  by  the  roots — he,  the  retired 
captain,  the  civilian,  who  at  first  had  had  to 
stay  at  home  training  recruits.  Now  that  it 
was  a  thousand  times  harder,  now  his  turn  had 
come  to  be  a  leader,  and  he  dared  not  resist  the 
task  to  which  he  was  not  equal.  On  the  con- 


68  MEN  IN  WAR 

trary,  as  a  matter  of  decency,  he  had  been 
forced  to  push  his  claims  so  that  others  who 
had  already  shed  their  blood  out  there  should 
not  have  to  go  again  for  him. 

A  dull,  impotent  rage  came  over  him  when 
he  stepped  up  in  front  of  his  men  ranged  in 
deep  rows.  They  stared  at  his  lips  in  breath- 
less suspense.  What  was  he  to  say  to  them? 
It  went  against  him  to  reel  off  compliantly  the 
usual  patriotic  phrases  that  forced  themselves 
on  one's  lips  as  though  dictated  by  an  outside 
power.  For  months  he  had  carried  about  the 
defiant  resolve  not  to  utter  the  prescribed 
"dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori"  what- 
ever the  refusal  might  cost.  Nothing  was  so 
repulsive  to  him  as  singing  the  praises  of  the 
sacrifice  of  one's  life.  It  was  a  juggler's  trick 
to  cry  out  that  some  one  was  dying  while  in- 
side the  booth  murder  was  being  done. 

He  clenched  his  teeth  and  lowered  his  eyes 
shyly  before  the  wall  of  pallid  faces.  The  fool- 
ish, childlike  prayer,  "Take  care  of  us!"  gazed 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  69 

at  him  maddeningly  from  all  those  eyes.  It 
drove  him  to  sheer  despair. 

If  only  he  could  have  driven  them  back  to 
their  own  people  and  gone  ahead  alone!  With 
a  jerk  he  threw  out  his  chest,  fixed  his  eyes  on 
a  medal  that  a  man  in  the  middle  of  the  long 
row  was  wearing,  and  said: 

"Boys,  we're  going  to  meet  the  enemy  now. 
I  count  upon  each  of  you  to  do  his  duty,  faith- 
ful to  the  oath  you  have  sworn  to  the  flag.  I 
shall  ask  nothing  of  you  that  the  interest  of 
our  fatherland  and  your  own  interest  therefore 
and  the  safety  of  your  wives  and  children  do 
not  absolutely  require.  You  may  depend  upon 
that.  Good  luck!  And  now — forward, 
march  I" 

Without  being  conscious  of  it,  he  had  imi- 
tated Weixler's  voice,  his  unnaturally  loud, 
studiedly  incisive  tone  of  command,  so  as  to 
drown  the  emotion  that  fluttered  in  his  throat. 
At  the  last  words  he  faced  about  abruptly  and 
without  looking  around  tossed  the  final  com- 
mand over  his  shoulder  for  the  men  to  deploy, 


70  MEN  IN  WAR 

and  with  his  head  sunk  upon  his  chest  he  be- 
gan the  ascent,  taking  long  strides.  Behind 
him  boots  crunched  and  food  pails  clattered 
against  some  other  part  of  the  men's  accouter- 
ment.  Soon,  too,  there  came  the  sound  of  the 
gasping  of  heavily  laden  men ;  and  a  thick,  suf- 
focating smell  of  sweat  settled  upon  the  march- 
ing company. 

Captain  Marschner  was  ashamed.  A  real 
physical  nausea  at  the  part  he  had  just  played 
overcame  him.  What  was  there  left  for  these 
simple  people  to  do,  these  bricklayers  and  en- 
gineers and  cultivators  of  the  earth,  who,  bent 
over  their  daily  tasks,  had  lived  without  vision 
into  the  future — what  was  there  left  for  them 
to  do  when  the  grand  folks,  the  learned  people, 
their  own  captain  with  the  three  golden  stars 
on  his  collar,  assured  them  it  was  their  duty 
and  a  most  praiseworthy  thing  to  shoot  Italian 
bricklayers  and  engineers  and  farmers  into 
fragments?  They  went — gasping  behind  him, 
and  he — he  led  them  on!  Led  them,  against 
his  inner  conviction,  because  of  his  pitiful 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  71 

cowardice,  and  asked  them  to  be  courageous 
and  contemptuous  of  death.  He  had  talked 
them  into  it,  had  abused  their  confidence,  had 
made  capital  of  their  love  for  their  wives  and 
children,  because  if  he  acted  in  the  service  of 
a  lie,  there  was  a  chance  of  his  continuing  to 
live  and  even  coming  back  home  safe  again, 
while  if  he  stuck  to  the  truth  he  believed  in 
there  was  the  certainty  of  his  being  stood  up 
against  a  wall  and  shot. 

He  staked  their  lives  and  his  own  life  on  the 
throw  of  loaded  dice  because  he  was  too  cow- 
ardly to  contemplate  the  certain  loss  of  the 
game  for  himself  alone. 

The  sun  beat  down  murderously  on  the 
steep,  treeless  declivity.  The  sound  of  shells 
bursting  off  at  a  distance,  of  tattooing  ma- 
chine guns,  and  roaring  artillery  on  their  own 
side  was  now  mingled  with  the  howling  sound 
of  shots  whizzing  through  the  air  and  coming 
closer  and  closer.  And  still  the  top  of  the 
ridge  had  not  been  reached !  The  captain 
felt  his  breath  fail  him,  stopped  and  raised  his 


72  MEN  IN  WAR 

hand.  The  men  were  to  get  their  wind  back 
for  a  moment;  they  had  been  on  the  march 
since  four  o'clock  that  morning;  they  had  done 
bravely  with  their  forty-year-old  legs.  He 
could  tell  that  by  his  own. 

Full  of  compassion  he  looked  upon  the  bluish 
red  faces  streaming  with  sweat,  and  gave  a 
start  when  he  saw  Lieutenant  .Weixler  ap- 
proaching in  long  strides.  Why  could  he  no 
longer  see  that  face  without  a  sense  of  being 
attacked,  of  being  caught  at  the  throat  by  a 
hatred  he  could  hardly  control?  He  ought 
really  to  be  glad  to  have  the  man  at  his  side 
there.  One  glance  into  those  coldly  watchful 
eyes  was  sufficient  to  subdue  any  surge  of  com- 
passion. 

"With  your  permission,  Captain,"  he  heard 
him  rasp  out,  "I'm  going  over  to  the  left  wing. 
A  couple  of  fellows  there  that  don't  please  me 
at  all.  Especially  Simmel,  the  red-haired  dog. 
He's  already  pulling  his  head  in  when  a  shrap- 
nel bursts  over  there." 

Marschner  was  silent.  The  red-haired  dog 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  73 

— Simmel?  Wasn't  that  the  red-haired  end- 
man  in  the  second  line,  the  paper-hanger  and 
upholsterer  who  had  carried  that  exquisite  lit- 
tle girl  in  his  arms  up  to  the  last  moment — 
until  Weixler  had  brutally  driven  him  off  to 
the  train?  It  seemed  to  the  captain  as  though 
he  could  still  see  the  children's  astonished  up- 
ward look  at  the  mighty  man  who  could  scold 
their  own  father. 

"Let  him  be,  he'll  get  used  to  it  by  and  by," 
he  said  mildly.  "He's  got  his  children  on  his 
mind  and  isn't  in  a  hurry  to  make  orphans 
of  them.  The  men  can't  all  be  heroes.  If  they 
just  do  their  duty." 

Weixler's  face  became  rigid.  His  narrow 
lips  tightened  again  into  that  hard,  contemptu- 
ous expression  which  the  captain  felt  each  time 
like  the  blow  of  a  whip. 

"He's  not  supposed  to  think  of  his  brats 
now,  but  of  his  oath  to  the  flag,  of  the  oath  he 
swore  to  his  Majesty,  his  Commander-in- 
Chief  I  You  just  told  them  so  yourself,  Cap- 
tain." 


74  MEN  IN  WAR 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  I  did,"  Captain  Marsch- 
ner  nodded  absent-mindedly,  and  let  himself 
slide  down  slowly  on  the  grass.  It  was  not  sur- 
prising that  this  boy  spoke  as  he  did,  but  what 
was  surprising  was  that  twenty-five  years  ago, 
when  he  himself  had  come  from  the  military 
academy  all  aglow  with  enthusiasm,  the  phrases 
"oath  to  the  flag,"  "his  Majesty,  and  Com- 
mander-in-Chief"  had  seemed  to  him,  too,  to 
be  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  things.  In 
those  days  he  would  have  been  like  this  lad  and 
would  have  gone  to  war  full  of  joyous  enthusi- 
asm. But  now  that  he  had  grown  deaf  to  the 
fanfaronade  of  such  words  and  clearly  saw  the 
framework  on  which  they  were  constructed, 
how  was  he  to  keep  pace  with  the  young 
who  were  a  credulous  echo  of  every  speech  they 
heard?  How  was  he  suddenly  to  make  bold 
reckless  blades  of  his  excellent,  comfortable 
Philistines,  whom  life  had  so  thoroughly  tamed 
that  at  home  they  were  capable  of  going  hun- 
gry and  not  snatching  at  treasures  that  were 
separated  from  them  by  only  a  thin  partition 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  75 

of  glass?  What  was  the  use  of  making  the 
same  demands  upon  the  upholsterer  Simmel 
as  upon  the  young  lieutenant,  who  had  never 
striven  for  anything  else  than  to  be  named 
first  for  fencing,  wrestling,  and  courageous 
conduct?  Have  mercenaries  ever  been  fa- 
mous for  their  morals,  or  good  solid  citizens 
for  their  fearlessness?  Can  one  and  the  same 
man  be  twenty  and  forty-five  years  old  at  the 
same  time? 

Crouching  there,  his  head  between  his  fists, 
the  captain  became  so  absorbed  in  these 
thoughts  that  he  lost  all  sense  of  the  time  and 
the  place,  and  the  lieutenant's  attempts  to 
rouse  him  by  passing  by  several  times  and 
hustling  the  men  about  loudly  remained  unsuc- 
cessful. But  at  last  the  sound  of  a  horse's 
hoofs  brought  him  back  to  consciousness.  An 
officer  was  galloping  along  the  path  that  ran 
about  the  hill  half  way  from  the  top.  On  his 
head  he  wore  the  tall  cap  that  marked  him  as 
a  member  of  the  general  staff.  He  reined  in 
his  horse,  asked  courteously  where  the  com- 


76  MEN  IN  WAR 

pany  was  bound  and  raised  his  eyebrows  when 
Captain  Marschner  explained  the  precise  po- 
sition they  were  to  take. 

"So  that's  where  you're  going?"  he  ex- 
claimed, and  his  grimace  turned  into  a  respect- 
ful smile.  "Well,  I  congratulate  you!  You're 
going  into  the  very  thickest  of  the  lousy  mess. 
For  three  days  the  Italians  have  been  trying 
to  break  through  at  that  point.  I  wouldn't 
hold  you  back  for  a  moment!  The  poor  dev- 
ils there  now  will  make  good  use  of  the  relief. 
Good-bye  and  good  luck!" 

Gracefully  he  touched  the  edge  of  his  cap. 
His  horse  cried  out  under  the  pressure  of  his 
spurs,  and  he  was  gone. 

The  captain  stared  after  him  as  though 
dazed.  "Well,  I  congratulate  you!"  The 
words  echoed  in  his  ears.  A  man,  well 
mounted,  thoroughly  rested,  pink  and  neat  as 
though  he  had  just  come  out  of  a  band-box, 
meets  two  hundred  fellowmen  dedicated  to 
death ;  sees  them  sweaty,  breathless,  on  the  very 
edge  of  destruction;  knows  that  in  another 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  77 

hour  many  a  face  now  turned  upon  him  curi- 
ously will  lie  in  the  grass  distorted  by  pain  or 
rigid  in  death — and  he  says,  smiling,  "Well, 
I  congratulate  you!"  And  he  rides  on  and 
no  shudder  of  awe  creeps  down  his  back,  no 
shadow  touches  his  forehead! 

The  meeting  will  fade  from  the  man's  mem- 
ory without  leaving  a  trace.  At  dinner  that 
night  nothing  will  remind  him  of  the  com- 
rade whose  hand,  perhaps,  he  was  the  last  one 
to  press.  To  these  chosen  ones,  who  from  their 
safe  positions  in  the  rear,  drive  the  columns  on 
into  the  fire,  what  matters  a  single  com- 
pany's march  to  death?  And  the  miser- 
able, red-haired  upholsterer  here  was  trembling, 
pulling  back  his  head,  tearing  his  eyes  open 
mightily,  as  though  the  fate  of  the  world  de- 
pended upon  whether  he  would  ever  again 
carry  his  little  red-haired  girl  in  his  arms. 
To  be  sure,  if  one  viewed  the  whole  matter  in 
the  proper  perspective — as  a  member  of  the 
general  staff  riding  by,  who  kept  his  vision 
fixed  on  the  aim,  that  is,  the  victory  that  sooner 


78  MEN  IN  WAR 

or  later  would  be  celebrated  to  the  clinking  of 
glasses — why,  from  that  point  of  view  Weixler 
was  right!  It  must  make  him  indignant  to 
have  events  of  such  epic  grandeur  made  ri- 
diculous by  such  a  chicken-hearted  creature  as 
Simmel  and  degraded  into  a  doleful  family  af- 
fair. 

"The  poor  devils  there  now!"  A  cold  shiver 
ran  down  Marschner's  back.  The  staff  offi- 
cer's words  suddenly  evoked  a  vision  of  the 
shattered,  blood-soaked  trench  where  the  men, 
exhausted  to  the  point  of  death,  were  yearn- 
ing for  him  as  for  a  redeemer.  He  arose,  with 
a  groan,  seized  by  a  grim,  embittered  hatred 
against  this  age.  Not  a  single  mesh  in  the 
net  left  open!  Every  minute  of  respite 
granted  his  own  men  was  theft  or  even  mur- 
der committed  against  the  men  out  there. 
He  threw  up  his  arms  and  strode  forward,  de- 
termined to  rest  no  more  until  he  reached  the 
trench  that  he  and  his  company  were  to  man 
and  hold.  His  face  was  pale  and  careworn, 
and  each  time  he  caught  the  exasperating  rasp 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  79 

of  his  lieutenant's  voice  from  the  other  wing 
crying  "Forward!  Forward!"  it  was  drawn 
by  a  tortured  smile. 

Suddenly  he  stood  still.  Into  the  rattle,  the 
boom,  the  explosion  of  artillery  there  leaped 
suddenly  a  new  tone.  It  rose  clearly  above  the 
rest  of  the  din,  which  had  almost  ceased  to 
penetrate  the  consciousness.  It  approached 
with  such  a  shrill  sound,  with  such  indescribable 
swiftness,  with  so  fierce  a  threat,  that  the  sound 
seemed  to  be  visible,  as  though  you  could  actu- 
ally see  a  screaming  semicircle  rise  in  the  air, 
bite  its  way  to  one's  very  forehead,  and  snap 
there  with  a  short,  hard,  whiplike  crack.  A 
few  feet  away  a  little  whirl  of  dust  was  puffed 
up,  and  invisible  hail  stones  slapped  rattling 
down  upon  the  grass. 

A  shrapnel ! 

Captain  Marschner  looked  round  startled, 
and  to  his  terror  saw  all  the  men's  eyes  fixed 
on  him,  as  though  asking  his  advice.  A  pe- 
culiar smile  of  shame  and  embarrassment  hov- 
ered about  their  lips. 


80  MEN  IN  WAR 

It  was  his  business  to  set  the  men  a  good 
example,  to  march  on  carelessly  without  stop- 
ping or  looking  up.  After  all  it  made  no  dif- 
ference what  one  did  one  way  or  the  other. 
There  was  no  possibility  of  running  away  or 
hiding.  It  was  all  a  matter  of  chance.  Chance 
was  the  one  thing  that  would  protect  a  man. 
So  the  thing  to  do  was  to  go  ahead  as  if  not 
noticing  anything.  If  there  was  only  one  man 
in  the  company  who  did  not  seem  to  care,  the 
others  would  be  put  to  shame  and  would  mu- 
tually control  each  other,  and  then  everything 
was  won.  He  could  tell  by  his  own  experi- 
ence how  the  feeling  of  being  watched  on  all 
sides  upheld  him.  Had  he  been  by  himself, 
he  might  have  thrown  himself  on  the  ground 
and  tried  to  hide  behind  a  stone  no  matter  how 
small. 

"Nothing  but  a  spent  shot!  Forward,  boys  1" 
he  cried,  the  thought  of  being  a  support  to  his 
men  almost  making  him  cheerful.  But  the 
words  were  not  out  of  his  mouth  when 
other  shots  whizzed  through  the  air.  In  spite 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  81 

of  himself,  his  body  twitched  backward  and  his 
head  sank  lower  between  his  shoulders.  That 
made  him  stiffen  his  muscles  and  grind  his 
teeth  in  rage.  It  was  not  the  violence  with 
which  the  scream  flew  toward  him  that  made 
him  twitch.  It  was  the  strange  precision  with 
which  the  circle  of  the  thing's  flight  (exactly 
like  a  diagram  at  a  lecture  on  artillery)  curved 
in  front  of  him.  It  was  this  unnatural  feeling 
of  perceiving  a  sound  more  with  the  eye  than 
with  the  ear  that  made  the  will  powerless. 

Something  had  to  be  done  to  create  the  il- 
lusion of  not  being  wholly  defenseless. 

"Forward,  run!"  he  shouted  at  the  top  of 
his  voice,  holding  his  hands  to  his  mouth  to 
make  a  megaphone. 

His  men  stormed  forward  as  if  relieved. 
The  tension  left  their  faces ;  each  one  was  some- 
how busied  with  himself,  stumbled,  picked  him- 
self up,  grasped  some  piece  of  equipment  that 
was  coming  loose;  and  in  the  general  snorting 
and  gasping,  the  whistle  of  the  approaching 
shells  passed  almost  unobserved. 


82  MEN  IN  WAR 

After  a  while  it  came  to  Captain  Mar- 
schner's  consciousness  that  some  one  was  hiss- 
ing into  his  left  ear.  He  turned  his  head  and 
saw  Weixler  running  beside  him,  scarlet  in  the 
face. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked,  involuntarily  slow- 
ing down  from  a  run  to  a  walk. 

"Captain,  I  beg  to  announce  that  an  exam- 
ple ought  to  be  instituted !  That  coward  Sim- 
mel  is  demoralizing  the  whole  company.  At 
each  shrapnel  he  yells  out,  'Jesus,  my 
Savior,'  and  flings  himself  to  the  ground.  He 
is  frightening  the  rest  of  the  men.  He  ought 
to  be  made  an  example  of,  a " 

A  charge  of  four  shrapnels  whizzed  into  the 
middle  of  his  sentence.  The  screaming  seemed 
to  have  grown  louder,  more  piercing.  The 
captain  felt  as  though  a  monstrous,  glittering 
scythe  were  flashing  in  a  steep  curve  directly 
down  on  his  skull.  But  this  time  he  did  not 
dare  to  move  an  eyelash.  His  limbs  con- 
tracted and  grew  taut,  as  in  the  dentist's  chair 
when  the  forceps  grip  the  tooth.  At  the  same 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  83 

time,  he  examined  the  lieutenant's  face  closely, 
curious  to  see  how  he  was  taking  the  fire  for 
which  he  had  so  yearned.  But  he  seemed  not 
to  be  noticing  the  shrapnels  in  the  least.  He 
was  stretching  his  neck  to  inspect  the  left 
wing. 

"There!"  he  cried  indignantly.  "D'you  see, 
Captain?  The  miserable  cur  is  down  on  his 
face  again.  I'll  go  for  him!" 

Before  Marschner  could  hold  him  back,  he 
had  dashed  off.  But  half-way  he  stopped, 
stood  still,  and  then  turned  back  in  annoy- 
ance. 

"The  fellow's  hit,"  he  announced  glumly, 
with  an  irritated  shrug  of  his  shoulders. 

"Hit?"  the  captain  burst  out,  and  an  ugly, 
bitter  taste  suddenly  made  his  tongue  cleave 
to  the  roof  of  his  mouth.  He  observed  the 
frosty  calm  in  Weixler's  features,  the  unsym- 
pathetic, indifferent  look,  and  his  hand  started 
upward.  He  could  have  slapped  him,  his  in- 
sensibility was  so  maddening  and  that  care- 
less "the  fellow's  hit"  hurt  so.  The  image 


84  MEN  IN  WAR 

of  the  dear  little  girl  with  the  bright  ribbon  in 
her  red  curls  flashed  into  his  mind,  and  also 
the  vision  of  a  distorted  corpse  holding  a  child 
in  its  arms.  As  through  a  veil  he  saw  Weixler 
hasten  past  him  to  catch  up  with  the  company, 
and  he  ran  to  where  the  two  stretcher-bearers 
kneeled  next  to  something  invisible. 

The  wounded  man  lay  on  his  back.  His 
flaming  red  hair  framed  a  greenish  grey  face 
ghostly  in  its  rigidity.  A  few  minutes  before 
Captain  Marschner  had  seen  the  man  still  run- 
ning— the  same  face  still  full  of  vitality — from 
heat  and  excitement.  His  knees  gave  way. 
The  sight  of  that  change,  so  incomprehensible 
in  its  suddenness,  gripped  at  his  vitals  like  an 
icy  hand.  Was  it  possible?  Could  all  the  life 
blood  recede  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  a 
strong,  hale  man  crumble  into  ruins  in  a  few 
moments  ?  What  powers  of  hell  slept  in  such 
pieces  of  iron  that  between  two  breaths  they 
could  perform  the  work  of  many  months  of 
illness? 

"Don't  be  frightened,  Simmel!"  the  captain 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  85 

stammered,  supporting  himself  on  the  shoul- 
der of  one  of  the  stretcher-bearers.  "They'll 
carry  you  back  to  the  baggage!"  He  forced 
the  lie  out  with  an  effort,  drawing  a  deep 
breath.  "You'll  be  the  first  one  to  get  back 
to  Vienna  now!"  He  wanted  to  add  some- 
thing about  the  man's  family  and  the  little  girl 
with  the  red  curls,  but  he  could  not  get  it  over 
his  lips.  He  dreaded  a  cry  from  the  dying 
man  for  his  dear  ones,  and  when  the  mouth 
writhing  with  pain  opened  slowly,  it  sent  an 
inner  tremor  through  the  captain.  He  saw  the 
eyes  open,  too,  and  he  shuddered  at  their 
glassy  stare,  which  seemed  no  longer  to  fix  it- 
self upon  any  bodily  thing  but  to  be  looking 
through  all  those  present  and  seeking  some- 
thing at  a  distance. 

Simmel's  body  writhed  under  the  forcible 
examination  of  the  doctor's  hands.  Incompre- 
hensible gurgling  sounds  arose  from  his  torn 
chest  streaming  with  blood,  and  his  breath 
blew  the  scarlet  foam  at  his  mouth  into  burst- 
ing bubbles. 


86  MEN  IN  WAR 

"Simmel!  What  do  you  want,  Simmel?" 
Marschner  besought,  bending  low  over  the 
wounded  man.  He  listened  intently  to  the 
broken  sounds,  convinced  that  he  would  have 
to  try  to  catch  a  last  message.  He  breathed 
in  relief  when  the  wandering  eyes  at  last  found 
their  way  back  and  fastened  themselves  on 
his  face  with  a  look  of  anxious  inquiry  in  them. 
"Simmel!"  he  cried  again,  and  grasped  his 
hand,  which  trembled  toward  the  wound. 
"Simmel,  don't  you  know  me?" 

Simmel  nodded.  His  eyes  widened,  the 
corners  of  his  mouth  drooped. 

"It  hurts — Captain — hurts  so!"  came  from 
the  shattered  breast.  To  the  captain  it 
sounded  like  a  reproach.  After  a  short  rat- 
tling sound  of  pain  he  cried  out  again,  foam- 
ing at  the  mouth  and  with  a  piercing  shriek 
of  rage:  "It  hurts!  It  hurts!"  He  beat 
about  with  his  hands  and  feet. 

Captain  Marschner  jumped  up. 

"Carry  him  back,"  he  commanded,  and 
without  knowing  what  he  did,  he  put  his  fin- 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  87 

gers  into  his  ears,  and  ran  after  the  company, 
which  had  already  reached  the  top  of  the  ridge. 
He  ran  pressing  his  head  between  his  hands  as 
in  a  vise,  reeling,  panting,  driven  by  a  fear,  as 
though  the  wounded  man's  agonized  cry  were 
pursuing  him  with  lifted  axe.  He  saw  the 
shrunken  body  writhe,  the  face  that  had  so  sud- 
denly withered,  the  yellowish  white  of  the  eyes. 
And  that  cry:  "Captain — hurts  so!"  echoed 
within  him  and  clawed  at  his  breast,  so  that 
when  he  reached  the  summit  he  fell  down,  half 
choked,  as  if  the  ground  had  been  dragged 
from  under  his  feet. 

No,  he  couldn't  do  that  sort  of  thing!  He 
didn't  want  to  go  on  with  it.  He  was  no  hang- 
man, he  was  incapable  of  lashing  men  on  to 
their  death.  He  could  not  be  deaf  to  their 
woe,  to  that  childlike  whimpering  which  stung 
his  conscience  like  a  bitter  reproach.  He 
stamped  on  the  ground  defiantly.  Everything 
in  him  arose  in  rebellion  against  the  task  that 
called  him. 

Below,  the  field  of  battle  stretched  far  out, 


88  MEN  IN  WAR 

cheerlessly  grey.  No  tree,  no  patch  of  green. 
A  stony  waste — chopped  up,  crushed,  dug  in- 
side out,  no  sign  of  life.  The  communication 
trenches,  which  started  in  the  bottom  of  the 
valley  and  led  to  the  edge  of  the  hill,  from 
which  the  wire  entanglements  projected, 
looked  like  fingers  spread  out  to  grasp  some- 
thing and  clawed  deep  into  the  throttled  earth. 
Marschner  looked  round  again  involuntarily. 
Behind  him  the  green  slope  descended  steeply 
to  the  little  woods  in  which  the  baggage  had 
been  left.  Farther  behind  the  white  highroad 
gleamed  like  a  river  framed  in  colored  mead- 
ows. A  short  turn — and  the  greenness  van- 
ished! All  life  succumbed,  as  though  roared 
down  by  the  cannons,  by  the  howling  and 
pounding  that  hammered  in  the  valley  like  the 
pulsating  of  a  colossal  fever.  Shell  hole  upon 
shell  hole  yawned  down  there.  From  time  to 
time  thick,  black  pillars  of  earth  leaped  up  and 
for  moments  hid  small  parts  of  this  desert 
burned  to  ashes,  where  the  cloven  stumps  of 
trees,  whittled  as  by  pen-knives,  stuck  up  like 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  89 

a  jeering  challenge  to  the  impotent  imagina- 
tion, a  challenge  to  recognize  in  this  field  of 
death  and  refuse,  the  landscape  it  once  had 
been,  before  the  great  madness  had  swept  over 
it  and  sown  it  with  ruins,  leaving  it  like  a  danc- 
ing floor  on  which  two  worlds  had  fought  for 
a  loose  woman. 

And  into  this  vale  of  hell  he  was  now  to 
descend!  Live  down  there  five  days  and  five 
nights,  he  and  his  little  company  of  the 
damned,  spewed  down  into  that  place,  their 
living  bodies  speared  on  the  fishing  hook,  bait 
for  the  enemy  1 

All  alone,  with  no  one  near  to  hear  him, 
amid  the  fury  of  the  bursting  shrapnel,  which 
fell  up  there  as  thick  as  rain  in  a  thunder- 
storm, Captain  Marschner  gave  himself  up  to 
his  rage,  his  impotent  rage  against  a  world 
that  had  inflicted  such  a  thing  on  him.  He 
cursed  and  roared  out  his  hatred  into  the  deaf 
tumult;  and  then  he  sprang  up  when,  far  be- 
low, almost  in  the  valley  already,  his  men 
emerged  followed  by  Lieutenant  Weixler, 


90  MEN  IN  WAR 

who  ran  behind  them  like  a  butcher's  helper 
driving  oxen  to  the  shambles.  The  captain 
saw  them  hurry,  saw  the  clouds  of  the  explo- 
sions multiply  above  their  heads,  and  on  the 
slope  in  front  of  him  saw  bluish-green  heaps 
scattered  here  and  there,  like  knapsacks 
dropped  by  the  way,  some  motionless,  some 
twitching  like  great  spiders — and  he  rushed 
on. 

He  raced  like  a  madman  down  the  steep 
slope,  scarcely  feeling  the  ground  under  his 
feet,  nor  hearing  the  rattle  of  the  exploding 
shells.  He  flew  rather  than  ran,  stumbled  over 
charred  roots,  fell,  picked  himself  up  again  and 
darted  onward,  looking  neither  to  the  right  nor 
to  the  left,  almost  with  closed  eyes.  Now  and 
then,  as  from  a  train  window,  he  saw  a  pale, 
troubled  face  flit  by.  Once  it  seemed  to  him 
he  heard  a  man  moaning  for  water.  But  he 
wished  to  hear  nothing,  to  see  nothing.  He 
ran  on,  blind  and  deaf,  without  stopping, 
driven  by  the  terror  of  that  bad,  reproachful, 
"Hurts  so!" 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  91 

Only  once  did  he  halt,  as  though  he  had 
stepped  into  a  trap  and  were  held  fast  in  an 
iron  vise.  A  hand  stopped  him,  a  grey,  con- 
vulsed hand  with  crooked  fingers.  It  stuck  up 
in  front  of  him  as  though  hewn  out  of  stone. 
He  saw  no  face,  nor  knew  who  it  was  that  held 
out  that  dead,  threatening  fist.  All  he  knew 
was  that  two  hours  before,  over  there  in  the 
little  piece  of  woods,  that  hand  had  still  com- 
fortably cut  slices  of  rye  bread  or  had  written 
a  last  post-card  home.  And  a  horror  of  those 
fingers  took  hold  of  the  captain  and  lent  new 
strength  to  his  limbs,  so  that  he  stormed  on- 
ward in  great  leaps  like  a  boy  until,  with 
throbbing  sides  and  a  red  cloud  before  his  eyes, 
he  caught  up  with  his  company  at  last,  way 
down  in  the  valley  at  the  entrance  to  the  com- 
munication trenches. 

Lieutenant  Weixler  presented  himself  in 
strictest  military  form  and  announced  the  loss 
of  fourteen  men.  Marschner  heard  the  ring  of 
pride  in  his  voice,  like  triumph  over  what  had 
been  achieved,  like  the  rejoicing  of  a  boy  brag- 


92  MEN  IN  WAR 

ging  of  the  first  down  on  his  lip  and  deepen- 
ing the  newly  acquired  dignity  of  a  bass  voice. 
What  were  the  wounded  men  writhing  on  the 
slope  above  to  this  raw  youth,  what  the  red- 
haired  coward  with  his  whine,  what  the  chil- 
dren robbed  of  their  provider  growing  up  to 
be  beggars,  to  a  life  in  the  abyss,  perhaps  to 
a  life  in  jail?  All  these  were  mere  supers,  a 
stage  background  for  Lieutenant  Weixler's 
heroism  to  stand  out  in  relief.  Fourteen 
bloody  bodies  lined  the  path  he  had  trodden 
without  fear.  How  should  his  eyes  not  radi- 
ate arrogance? 

The  captain  hastened  on,  past  Weixler.  If 
only  he  did  not  have  to  see  him,  he  told  him- 
self, if  only  he  did  not  have  to  meet  the  con- 
tented gleam  of  the  man's  eyes.  He  feared  his 
rage  might  master  his  reason  and  his  tongue 
get  beyond  his  control,  and  his  clenched  fist 
do  its  own  will.  But  here  he  had  to  spare  this 
man.  Here  Lieutenant  Weixler  was  within 
his  rights.  He  grew  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment. His  stature  dwarfed  the  others.  He 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  93 

swam  upon  the  stream,  while  the  others, 
weighed  down  by  the  burden  of  their  riper 
humanity,  sank  like  heavy  clods.  Here 
other  laws  obtained.  The  dark  shaft  in  which 
they  now  reeled  forward  with  trembling  knees 
led  to  an  island  washed  by  a  sea  of  death. 
.Whoever  was  stranded  there  dared  not  keep 
anything  that  he  used  in  another  world.  The 
man  who  was  master  here  was  the  one  who 
had  kept  nothing  but  his  axe  and  his  fist.  And 
he  was  the  rich  one  upon  whose  superabun- 
dance the  others  depended.  As  Captain 
Marschner  groped  his  way  through  the  slip- 
pery trench  in  a  daze,  it  became  clearer  and 
clearer  to  him  that  he  must  now  hold  on  to 
his  detested  lieutenant  like  a  treasure.  With- 
out him  he  would  be  lost. 

He  saw  the  traces  of  puddles  of  blood  at  his 
feet,  and  trod  upon  tattered,  blood-soaked 
pieces  of  uniforms,  on  empty  shells,  rattling 
preserve  tins,  fragments  of  cannon  balls. 
Yawning  shell  holes  would  open  up  suddenly, 
precariously  bridged  with  half -charred  boards. 


94  MEN  IN  WAR 

Everywhere  the  traces  of  frenzied  devastation 
grinned,  blackened  remains  of  a  wilderness  of 
wires,  beams,  sacks,  broken  tools,  a  disorder 
that  took  one's  breath  away  and  made  one 
dizzy — all  steeped  in  the  suffocating  stench 
of  combustion,  powder  smoke,  and  the  pun- 
gent, stinging  breath  of  the  ecrasite  shells. 
Wherever  one  stepped  the  earth  had  been  lac- 
erated by  gigantic  explosions,  laboriously 
patched  up  again,  once  more  ripped  open  to 
its  very  bowels,  and  leveled  a  second  time,  so 
that  one  reeled  on  unconscious,  as  if  in  a  hur- 
ricane. 

Crushed  by  the  weight  of  his  impressions, 
Captain  Marschner  crept  through  the  trench 
like  a  worm,  and  his  thoughts  turned  ever  more 
passionately,  ever  more  desperately  to  Lieu- 
tenant Weixler.  Weixler  alone  could  help  him 
or  take  his  place,  with  that  grim,  cold  energy 
of  his,  with  that  blindness  to  everything  which 
did  not  touch  his  own  life,  or  which  was 
eclipsed  by  the  glowing  vision  of  an  Erich 
Weixler  studded  with  decorations  and  pro- 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  95 

moted  out  of  his  turn.  The  captain  kept  look- 
ing about  for  him  anxiously,  and  breathed 
with  relief  each  time  the  urgent,  rasping  voice 
came  to  his  ears  from  the  rear. 

The  trench  seemed  never  to  be  coming  to 
an  end.  Marschner  felt  his  strength  giving 
way.  He  stumbled  more  frequently  and 
closed  his  eyes  with  a  shudder  at  the  criss-cross 
traces  of  blood  that  precisely  indicated  the 
path  of  the  wounded.  Suddenly  he  raised  his 
head  with  a  jerk.  A  new  smell  struck  him, 
a  sweetish  stench  which  kept  getting  stronger 
and  stronger  until  at  a  curve  of  the  trench 
wall,  which  swung  off  to  the  left  at  this  point 
and  receded  semicircular ly,  it  burst  upon  him 
like  a  great  cloud.  He  looked  about,  shaken 
by  nausea,  his  gorge  rising.  In  a  dip  in  the 
trench  he  saw  a  pile  of  dirty,  tattered  uniforms 
heaped  in  layers  and  with  strangely  rigid  out- 
lines. It  took  him  some  time  to  grasp  the  full 
horror  of  that  which  towered  in  front  of  him. 
Fallen  soldiers  were  lying  there  like  gathered 
logs,  in  the  contorted  shapes  of  the  last  death 


96  MEN  IN  WAR 

agony.  Tent  flaps  had  been  spread  over 
them,  but  had  slipped  down  and  revealed  the 
grim,  stony  grey  caricatures,  the  fallen  jaws, 
the  staring  eyes.  The  arms  of  those  in  the 
top  tier  hung  earthward  like  parts  of  a  trellis, 
and  grasped  at  the  faces  of  those  lying  below, 
and  were  already  sown  with  the  livid  splotches 
of  corruption. 

Captain  Marschner  uttered  a  short,  belching 
cry  and  reeled  forward.  His  head  shook  as 
though  loosened  from  his  neck,  and  his  knees 
gave  way  so  that  he  already  saw  the  ground 
rising  up  toward  him,  when  suddenly  an  un- 
known face  emerged  directly  in  front  of  him 
and  attracted  his  attention,  and  gave  him  back 
his  self-control.  It  was  a  sergeant,  who  was 
staring  at  him  silently  with  great,  fevered, 
gleaming  eyes  in  a  deathly  pale  face.  For  a 
moment  the  man  stood  as  though  paralyzed, 
then  his  mouth  opened  wide,  he  clapped  his 
hands,  and  jumped  into  the  air  like  a  dancer, 
and  dashed  off,  without  thinking  of  a  salute. 

"Relief  1"  he  shouted  while  running. 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  97 

He  came  to  a  halt  before  a  black  hole  in  the 
trench  wall,  like  the  entrance  to  a  cave,  and 
bent  down  and  shouted  into  the  opening  with 
a  ring  of  indescribable  joy  in  his  voice — with 
a  rejoicing  that  sounded  as  if  it  came  through 
tears : 

"Relief  1  Lieutenant!  The  relief  party  is 
herel" 

The  captain  looked  after  him  and  heard  his 
cry.  His  eyes  grew  moist,  so  touching  was 
that  childlike  cry  of  joy,  that  shout  from  out 
of  a  relieved  heart.  He  followed  the  sergeant 
slowly,  and  saw — as  though  the  cry  had  awak- 
ened the  dead — pallid  faces  peering  from  all 
corners,  wounded  men  with  blood-soaked 
bandages,  tottering  figures  holding  their  rifles. 
Men  streamed  toward  him  from  every  direc- 
tion, stared  at  him  and  with  speechless  lips 
formed  the  word  "relief,"  until  at  length  one 
of  them  roared  out  a  piercing  "hurrah,"  which 
spread  like  wildfire  and  found  an  echo  in  un- 
seen throats  that  repeated  it  enthusiastically. 
Deeply  shaken,  Marschner  bowed  his  head  and 


98  MEN  IN  WAR 

swiftly  drew  his  hand  across  his  eyes  when  the 
commandant  of  the  trench  rushed  toward  him 
from  the  dugout. 

Nothing  that  betokens  life  was  left  about  the 
man.  His  face  was  ashen,  his  eyes  like  lamps 
extinguished,  glazed  and  surrounded  by  broad 
blue  rims.  His  lids  were  a  vivid  red  from 
sleeplessness.  His  hair,  his  beard,  his  clothes 
were  encased  in  a  thick  crust  of  mud,  so  that 
he  looked  as  if  he  had  just  arisen  from  the 
grave.  He  gave  a  brief,  military  salute,  then 
grasped  the  captain's  hand  with  hysterical  joy. 
His  hand  was  cold  as  a  corpse's  and  sticky 
with  sweat  and  dirt.  And  most  uncanny  was 
the  contrast  between  this  skeleton  hung  with 
clothes,  this  rigid  death-mask  of  a  face,  and  the 
twitching,  over-excited  nervousness  with  which 
the  lieutenant  greeted  their  liberator. 

The  words  leaped  like  a  waterfall  from  his 
cracked  lips.  He  drew  Marschner  into  the 
dugout  and  pushed  him,  stumbling  and  grop- 
ing as  if  dazzled,  down  on  an  invisible  some- 
thing meant  for  a  seat  and  began  to  tell  his 


BAPTISM  OF  FERE  99 

tale.  He  couldn't  stand  still  for  a  second. 
He  hopped  about,  slapped  his  thighs,  laughed 
with  unnatural  loudness,  ran  up  and  down 
trippingly,  threw  himself  on  the  couch  in  the 
corner,  asked  for  a  cigarette  every  other  min- 
ute, threw  it  away  without  knowing  it  after 
two  puffs,  and  at  once  asked  for  another. 

"I  tell  you,  three  hours  more,"  he  crowed 
blissfully,  with  affected  gaiety,  " — three? 
What  am  I  talking  about.  One  hour  more, 
and  it  would  have  been  too  late.  D'you  know 
how  many  rounds  of  ammunition  I've  got  left? 
Eleven  hundred  in  all!  Machine  guns?  Run 
down!  Telephone?  Smashed  since  last  night 
already!  Send  out  a  party  to  repair  it?  Im- 
possible! Needed  every  man  in  the  trench! 
A  hundred  and  sixty-four  of  us  at  first.  How 
I've  got  thirty-one,  eleven  of  them  wounded 
so  that  they  can't  hold  a  rifle.  Thirty-one  fel- 
lows to  hold  the  trench  with!  Last  night  there 
were  still  forty-five  of  us  when  they  attacked. 
We  drove  'em  to  hell,  of  course,  but  fourteen 
of  our  men  went  again.  We  haven't  had  a 


100  MEN  IN  WAR 

chance  to  bury  them  yet.    Didn't  you  see  them 
lying  out  there?" 

The  Captain  let  him  talk.  He  leaned  his 
elbows  on  the  primitive  table,  held  his  head 
between  his  hands,  and  kept  silent.  His  eyes 
wandered  about  the  dark,  mouldy  den,  filled 
with  the  stench  of  a  smoking  little  kerosene 
lamp.  He  saw  the  mildewed  straw  in  the  cor- 
ner, the  disconnected  telephone  at  the  entrance, 
an  empty  box  of  tinned  food  on  which  a  crum- 
pled map  was  spread  out.  He  saw  a  moun- 
tain of  rifles,  bundles  of  uniforms,  each  one 
ticketed.  And  he  felt  how  inch  by  inch,  a 
dumb,  icy  horror  arose  within  him  and  para- 
lyzed his  breathing,  as  though  the  earth  over- 
head, upheld  by  only  a  thin  scaffolding  of 
cracked  boards  and  threatening  to  fall  at  any 
moment,  had  already  laid  its  intolerable  weight 
upon  his  chest.  And  that  prancing  ghost,  that 
giggling  death's  head,  which  only  a  week  be- 
fore perhaps  had  still  been  young,  affected 
him  like  a  nightmare.  And  the  thought  that 
now  his  turn  had  come  to  stick  it  out  in  that 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  101 

sepulchral  vault  for  five  or  six  days  or  a  week 
and  experience  the  same  horrors  that  the  man 
there  was  telling  about  with  a  laugh  intensi- 
fied his  discouragement  into  a  passionate, 
throbbing  indignation  which  he  could  scarcely 
control  any  more.  He  could  have  roared  out, 
could  have  jumped  up,  run  out,  and  shouted 
to  mankind  from  the  depths  of  his  soul  asking 
why  he  had  been  tossed  there,  why  he  would 
have  to  lie  there  until  he  had  turned  into  car- 
rion or  a  crazy  man.  How  could  he  have  let 
himself  be  driven  out  there?  He  could  not 
understand  it.  He  saw  no  meaning  to  it  all, 
no  aim.  All  he  saw  was  that  hole  in  the  earth, 
those  rotting  corpses  outside,  and  nearby,  but 
one  step  removed  from  all  that  madness,  his 
own  Vienna  as  he  had  left  it  only  two  days  be- 
fore, with  its  tramways,  its  show  windows,  its 
smiling  people  and  its  lighted  theaters. 
What  madness  to  be  crouching  there  waiting 
for  death  with  idiotic  patience,  to  perish  on 
the  naked  earth  in  blood  and  filth,  like  a  beast, 
while  other  people,  happy,  clean,  dressed  up, 


102  MEN  IN  WAR 

sat  in  bright  halls  and  listened  to  music,  and 
then  nestled  in  soft  beds  without  fear,  without 
danger,  guarded  by  a  whole  world,  which 
would  come  down  in  indignation  upon  any 
who  dared  to  harm  a  single  hair  of  their  heads. 
Had  madness  already  stolen  upon  him  or  were 
the  others  mad? 

His  pulse  raged  as  though  his  heart  would 
burst  if  he  could  not  relieve  his  soul  by  a  loud 
shout. 

At  that  very  moment  Lieutenant  Weixler 
came  bustling  in,  like  the  master  of  ceremonies 
at  a  ball.  He  stood  stiff  and  straight  in  front 
of  the  captain,  and  announced  that  everything 
above  was  in  readiness,  that  he  had  already  as- 
signed the  posts  and  arranged  the  watches, 
and  placed  the  machine  guns.  The  captain 
looked  at  him  and  had  to  lower  his  eyes  as  if 
boxed  on  the  ears  by  this  tranquillity,  which 
would  suddenly  wither  his  fury  into  a  burn- 
ing shame  at  himself. 

.Why  did  that  man  remain  untouched  by  the 
great  fear  of  death  which  impregnated  the 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  103 

very  air  here?  How  was  it  that  he  could  give 
orders  and  commands  with  the  foresightedness 
of  a  mature  man,  while  he  himself  crept  out 
of  sight  like  a  frightened  child  and  rebelled 
against  his  fate  with  the  senseless  fury  of  an 
animal  at  bay,  instead  of  mastering  fate  as 
befitted  his  age?  Was  he  a  coward?  Was 
he  in  the  grip  of  a  mean,  paltry  fear,  was  he 
overcome  by  that  wretched  blindness  of  the 
soul  which  cannot  lift  its  vision  beyond  its  own 
ego  nor  lose  sight  of  its  ego  for  the  sake  of  an 
idea?  Was  he  really  so  devoid  of  any  sense 
for  the  common  welfare,  so  utterly  ruled  by 
short-sighted  selfishness,  concerned  with  noth- 
ing but  his  bare,  miserable  existence? 

No,  he  was  not  like  that.  He  clung  to  his 
own  life  no  more  than  any  other  man.  He 
could  have  cast  it  away  enthusiastically,  and 
without  flying  banners,  without  ecstasy,  with- 
out the  world's  applause,  had  the  hostile 
trenches  over  there  been  filled  with  men  like 
Weixler,  had  the  combat  been  against  such 
crazy  hardness  of  soul,  against  catchwords 


104  MEN  IN  WAR 

fattened  with  human  flesh,  against  that  whole, 
cleverly  built-up  machine  of  force  which  drove 
those  whom  it  was  supposed  to  protect  to  form 
a  wall  to  protect  itself.  He  would  have 
hurled  himself  into  the  fight  with  bare  fists, 
unmindful  of  the  bursting  of  shells,  the  moans 
of  the  wounded.  Oh  no,  he  was  not  a  coward. 
Not  what  those  two  men  thought.  He  saw 
them  wink  scornfully  and  make  fun  of  the  un- 
happy old  uncle  of  a  reserve  officer  who  sat 
in  the  corner  like  a  bundle  of  misery.  What 
did  they  know  of  his  soul's  bitterness?  They 
stood  there  as  heroes  and  felt  the  glances  of 
their  home  upon  them,  and  spoke  words 
which,  upborne  by  the  echo  of  a  whole  world, 
peopled  the  loneliness  with  all  the  hosts  of  the 
likeminded  and  filled  their  souls  with  the 
strength  of  millions.  And  they  laughed  at  a 
man  who  was  to  kill  without  feeling  hatred 
and  die  without  ecstasy,  for  a  victory  that  was 
nothing  to  him  but  a  big  force  which  achieved 
its  objects  simply  because  it  hit  harder,  not 
because  it  had  justice  on  its  side  or  a  fine  and 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  105 

noble  aim.  He  had  no  cause  to  slink  off, 
humbled  by  their  courage. 

A  cold,  proud  defiance  heartened  him,  so 
that  he  arose,  strengthened  suddenly,  as  if  ele- 
vated by  the  superhuman  burden  that  he  alone 
carried  on  his  shoulders.  He  saw  the  strange 
lieutenant  still  dancing  about,  hastily  gather- 
ing up  his  belongings  and  stuffing  them  into 
his  knapsack.  He  heard  him  scold  his  or- 
derly and  bellow  at  him  to  hurry  up,  in  be- 
tween digging  up  fresh  details,  hideous  epi- 
sodes, from  the  combats  of  the  past  few  days, 
which  Weixler  devoured  in  breathless  atten- 
tion. 

"What  a  question!"  the  commandant  of  the 
trench  exclaimed,  laughing  at  his  audience. 
"Whether  the  Italians  had  heavy  losses,  too? 
Do  you  think  we  let  them  pepper  us  like 
rabbits?  You  can  easily  calculate  what 
those  fellows  lost  in  their  eleven  attacks  if 
we've  melted  down  to  thirty  men  without 
crawling  out  of  our  trench.  Just  let  them  go 


106  MEN  IN  WAR 

on  like  that  a  few  weeks  longer  and  they'll  be 
at  the  end  of  their  human  material." 

Captain  Marschner  had  not  wanted  to  listen. 
He  stood  bending  over  a  map,  but  at  the 
phrase,  "human  material,"  he  started  violently. 
It  sounded  like  a  taunt  directed  at  his  own 
thoughts,  as  if  the  two  men  had  seen  into  him 
and  had  agreed  with  each  other  to  give  him 
a  good  lesson  and  show  him  how  alone  he  was. 

"Human  material!" 

In  a  trench,  filled  with  the  stench  of  dead 
bodies,  shaken  by  the  impact  of  the  shells, 
stood  two  men,  each  himself  a  stake  in  the 
game,  and  while  the  dice  were  still  being 
tossed  for  their  very  bones,  they  talked  of — 
human  material!  They  uttered  those  ruth- 
less, shameful  words  without  a  shadow  of  in- 
dignation, as  though  it  were  natural  for  their 
living  bodies  to  be  no  more  than  a  gambler's 
chips  in  the  hands  of  men  who  arrogated  to 
themselves  the  right  to  play  the  game  of  gods. 
Without  hesitating  they  laid  their  one,  ir- 
revocable life  at  the  feet  of  a  power  that  could 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  107 

not  prove  whether  it  had  known  how  to  place 
the  stakes  rightly  except  by  their  dead  bodies. 
And  the  men  who  were  speaking  that  way 
were  officers!  So  where  was  there  a  gleam 
of  hope? 

Out  there,  among  the  simple  men,  perhaps, 
the  plain  cannon  fodder?  They  were  now 
crouching  resignedly  in  their  places,  thinking 
of  home  and  each  of  them  still  feeling  himself 
a  man.  He  was  drawn  to  his  men,  to  their 
dull,  silent  sadness,  to  their  true  greatness, 
which  without  pathos  and  without  solemnity, 
in  everyday  clothes,  as  it  were,  patiently 
awaited  the  hero's  death. 

Outside  the  dugout  stood  the  remnants  of 
the  relieved  company  ready  for  the  march,  al- 
ways two  men  abreast  with  a  dead  comrade  on 
a  tent  canvas  between  them.  A  long  proces- 
sion, profoundly  stirring  in  its  silent  expec- 
tancy, into  which  the  hissing  and  crackling  of 
shrapnel  and  the  thunder  of  grenades  fell  like 
a  warning  from  above  to  those  who  still  had 


108  MEN  IN  WAR 

their  lives.  Bitterly,  Marschner  clenched  his 
fist  at  this  insatiableness. 

At  that  moment  the  pale  sergeant  stepped 
in  front  of  the  place  where  the  dead  had  been 
piled  and  frightened  Marschner  out  of  his 
thoughts. 

"Captain,  I  beg  to  announce  that  beside  the 
fourteen  dead  there  are  three  seriously 
wounded  men  who  can't  walk — Italians.  I 
have  no  bearers  left  for  them." 

"We'll  leave  them  to  you  as  a  souvenir,"  the 
trench  commandant,  who  was  just  leaving  the 
dugout  with  Weixler,  laughed  in  his  maunder- 
ing way.  "You  can  have  them  dug  in  at  night 
up  there  among  the  communication  trenches, 
Captain.  When  it  gets  dark,  the  Italians  di- 
rect their  barrage  fire  farther  back,  and  give 
you  a  chance  to  climb  out.  To  be  sure,  they 
won't  lie  in  peace  there  under  the  earth  very 
long,  because  the  shells  rip  everything  open 
right  away  again.  I've  had  to  have  my  poor 
ensign  buried  three  times  over  already." 

"How  did  they  get  in  here  anyhow?"  Weix- 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  109 

ler  asked,  pushing  himself  forward.    "Did  you 
have  a  fight  in  the  trench?" 

The  other  lieutenant  shook  his  head  proud- 
ly. "I  should  rather  say  not.  The  gentlemen 
never  got  as  far  as  that.  These  three  tried  to 
cut  the  wire  entanglements  night  before  last, 
but  our  machine  gun  man  caught  'em  at  it  and 
his  iron  spatter  spoiled  their  little  game.  Well, 
there  they  lay,  of  course,  right  under  our  very 
noses  and  they  had  on  the  loveliest  shoes  of 
bright  yellow.  My  men  begrudged  'em  those 
shoes.  There — "  he  ended,  pointing  with  his 
finger  at  the  feet  of  the  pale  sergeant — 
"there  you  see  one  pair.  But  we'll  have  to 
start  now.  March,  sergeant!  My  respects, 
Captain.  The  Italians '11  open  their  eyes  when 
they  come  over  to-night  to  finish  us  off  com- 
fortably and  a  hundred  and  fifty  rifles  go  off 
and  two  brand-new  bullet  squirters.  Ha-ha! 
Sorry  I  can't  be  here  to  see  it!  Good-by,  lit- 
tle man!  Good  luck!"  Humming  a  merry 
popular  song  he  followed  his  men — without 
looking  back,  without  even  observing  that 


110  MEN  IN  WAR 

Marschner  accompanied  him  a  little  on  his 
way. 

Gaily,  as  though  on  a  Sunday  picnic,  the 
men  started  on  the  way,  which  led  over  the 
terrible  field  of  shards  and  ruins  and  the  steep, 
shot-up  hill.  What  hells  they  must  have  en- 
dured there,  in  that  mole's  gallery!  The  cap- 
tain remained  standing  and  heaved  a  deep  sigh. 
It  was  as  if  that  long,  grey  column  slowly 
winding  its  way  through  the  trench  were  carry- 
ing away  the  last  hope.  The  back  of  the  last 
soldier,  growing  smaller  and  smaller,  was  the 
world.  The  captain's  eyes  clung  greedily  to 
that  back  and  measured  fearfully  the  distance 
to  the  corner  of  the  trench  from  which  he  must 
lose  sight  of  it  forever.  There  was  still  time 
to  call  out  a  greeting,  and  by  running  very 
fast  one  might  still  catch  up  and  hand  over  a 
letter. 

Then  the  last  medium  disappeared — the  last 
possibility  of  dividing  the  world  into  two 
halves.  And  his  yearning  recoiled  before  the 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  111 

endless  space  it  had  to  bridge — and  there  was 
nothing  else  to  bridge  it  but  his  yearning. 

Marschner  sank  into  himself  as  he  stood  de- 
serted in  the  empty  trench.  He  felt  as  though 
he  had  been  hollowed  out,  and  looked  about 
for  help,  and  his  eyes  clung  to  the  depression 
from  which  the  corpses  had  now  been  lifted. 
Only  the  three  Italians  were  lying  there,  the 
life  already  gone  from  them.  The  one  showed 
his  face,  his  mouth  was  still  wide  open  as  for  a 
cry,  and  his  hands  dug  themselves,  as  though 
to  ward  off  pain,  into  his  unnaturally  swollen 
body.  The  other  two  lay  with  their  knees 
drawn  up  and  their  heads  between  their  arms. 
The  naked  feet  with  their  grey  convulsed  toes 
stared  into  the  communication  trench  like 
things  robbed,  with  a  mute  accusal.  There 
was  a  remoteness  about  these  dead  bodies,  a 
loneliness,  an  isolation  about  their  bared  feet. 
A  tangled  web  of  memories  arose,  a  throng  of 
fleeting  faces  glimmered  in  the  captain's  soul 
—gondoliers  of  Venice,  voluble  cabbies,  a 
toothless  inn-keeper's  wife  at  Posilipo.  Two 


112  MEN  IN  WAR 

trips  on  a  vacation  in  Italy  drove  an  army  of 
sorrowing  figures  through  his  mind.  And 
finally  another  figure  appeared  in  that  ghostly 
dance  of  death,  his  own  sister,  sitting  in  a  con- 
cert hall  in  Vienna,  care-free,  listening  to 
music,  while  her  brother  lay  somewhere 
stretched  out  on  the  ground,  rigid  in  death, 
an  enemy's  corpse  just  to  be  kicked  aside. 

Shuddering,  the  captain  hastened  back  down 
the  trench,  as  though  the  three  dead  men  were 
pursuing  him  noiselessly  on  their  naked  soles. 
When  he  reached  his  own  men  at  last,  he  felt 
as  if  he  had  arrived  at  a  harbor  of  safety. 

The  shells  were  now  falling  so  thick  that 
there  was  not  a  moment's  pause  between  the 
explosions,  and  all  sounds  merged  into  a  sin- 
gle, equal,  rolling  thunder,  which  made  the 
earth  tremble  like  the  hull  of  a  ship.  But  there 
was  a  particularly  sharp  crashing  and  splin- 
tering from  one  shot  that  hit  the  trench 
squarely  and  whirled  the  coverings  above  in 
all  directions.  A  few  minutes  later  two 
groaning  men  dragged  down  a  corpse,  leaned 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  113 

it  against  the  trench  wall,  and  climbed  back 
to  their  posts  through  the  narrow  shaft. 
Marschner  saw  his  sergeant  get  up  and  move 
his  lips — then  a  soldier  in  the  corner  arose  and 
took  up  his  rifle  and  followed  the  two  others 
heavily.  It  was  all  so  comfortless,  so  unmer- 
cifully businesslike,  precisely  as  when  "Next!" 
breaks  into  the  monotony  of  the  practising  in 
the  yard  of  the  barracks,  only  with  the  differ- 
ence that  a  little  group  at  once  gathered  about 
the  dead  man,  drawn  by  that  shy  curiosity 
which  irresistibly  attracts  simple  folk  to 
corpses  and  funerals.  Most  of  the  men  ex- 
pected the  same  of  him — he  saw  it  in  their 
eyes — that  he,  too,  would  go  over  and  pay  a 
last  tribute  of  respect  to  the  dead.  But  he 
did  not  want  to.  He  was  absolutely  deter- 
mined not  to  learn  the  fallen  man's  name.  He 
was  bent  upon  practising  self-mastery  at  last 
and  remaining  indifferent  to  all  small  hap- 
penings. So  long  as  he  had  not  seen  the  dead 
man's  face  nor  heard  his  name,  only  a  man 
had  fallen  in  battle,  one  of  the  many  thou- 


114  MEN  IN  WAR 

sands.  If  he  kept  his  distance  and  did  not 
bend  over  each  individual  and  did  not  let  a 
definite  fate  come  to  his  notice,  it  was  not  so 
hard  to  remain  indifferent. 

Stubbornly  he  walked  over  to  the  second 
shaft  leading  to  the  top  and  for  the  first  time 
observed  that  it  had  grown  quite  silent  up 
above.  There  was  no  longer  any  screaming 
or  bursting.  This  silence  came  upon  the  deaf- 
ening din  like  a  paralyzing  weight  and  filled 
space  with  a  tense  expectancy  that  flickered  in 
all  eyes.  He  wanted  to  rid  himself  of  this 
oppression  and  crept  through  the  crumbling 
shaft  up  to  the  top. 

The  first  thing  he  saw  was  Weixler's  curved 
back.  He  was  holding  his  field-glass  glued  to 
his  eyes  under  cover  of  a  shooting  shield.  The 
others  were  also  standing  as  if  pasted  to  their 
posts,  and  there  was  something  alarming  in 
the  motionlessness  of  their  shoulder  blades. 
All  at  once  a  twitching  ran  through  the  petri- 
fied row.  Weixler  sprang  back,  jostled 
against  the  captain,  and  cried  out :  "They  are 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  115 

coming!"    Then  he  stormed  to  the  shaft  and 
blew  the  alarm  whistle. 

Marschner  stared  after  him  helplessly.  He 
walked  with  hesitating  steps  to  the  shield  and 
looked  out  upon  the  wide,  smoke-covered  field, 
which  curved  beyond  the  tangle  of  wires,  grey, 
torn,  blood-flecked,  like  the  bloated  form  of  a 
gigantic  corpse.  Far  in  the  background  the 
sun  was  sinking.  Its  great  copper  disc  al- 
ready cut  in  half  by  the  horizon  seemed  to  be 
growing  out  of  the  ground.  And  against  that 
dazzling  background  black  silhouettes  were 
dancing  like  midges  under  a  microscope,  like 
Indians  swinging  their  tomahawks.  They 
were  still  mere  specks.  Sometimes  they  dis- 
appeared entirely  and  then  leaped  high,  and 
came  nearer,  their  rifles  wriggling  in  the  air 
life  the  feet  of  a  polyp.  Gradually  their  cries 
became  audible  and  swelled  louder  and 
louder  like  the  far  barking  of  dogs.  When 
they  called  "Avanti!"  it  was  a  piercing  cry, 
and  when  the  call  "Coraggio!"  went  through 


116  MEN  IN  WAR 

their  lines,  it  changed  to  a  dull,  thunderous 
roll. 

The  entire  company  now  stood  close-packed 
up  against  the  slope  of  the  trench,  their  faces 
as  of  stone,  restrained,  pale  as  chalk,  with  lip- 
less  mouths,  each  man's  gun  in  position — a  sin- 
gle beast  of  prey  with  a  hundred  eyes  and 
arms. 

"Don't  shoot!  Don't  shoot!  Don't  shoot!" 
Lieutenant  Weixler's  voice  yelled  without 
pause  through  the  trench.  His  command 
seemed  to  lay  its  grasp  on  every  throat  and  to 
hold  the  fingers  moveless  that  greedily  clasped 
the  triggers.  The  first  hand  grenade  flew  into 
the  trench.  The  captain  saw  it  coming,  then 
saw  a  man  loosen  from  the  mass,  reel  toward 
the  dugout  with  outstretched  arms,  bending 
over,  a  veil  of  blood  covering  his  face.  Then — 
at  last! — it  was  a  relief — came  the  beating  of 
the  machine  guns,  and  at  once  the  rifles  went 
off,  too,  like  the  raging  of  an  angry  pack.  A 
cold,  repulsive  greed  lay  on  all  faces.  Some 
of  the  men  cried  out  aloud  in  their  hate  and 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  117 

rage  when  new  groups  emerged  out  there  be- 
hind the  thinning  rows.  The  barrels  of  the 
rifles  glowed  with  heat — and  still  the  rumbling 
cries  of  "Coraggio!"  came  nearer  and  nearer. 

As  though  in  a  frenzy  of  insanity,  the  sil- 
houettes hopped  about  out  there,  sprang  into 
the  air,  fell,  and  rolled  over  each  other,  as 
though  the  war  dance  had  only  just  reached 
the  climax  of  its  paroxysm. 

Then  Captain  Marschner  observed  the  man 
next  to  him  let  his  rifle  sink  for  a  moment  and 
with  hasty,  shaking  hands  insert  the  bayonet 
into  the  smoking  barrel.  The  captain  felt  as 
though  he  were  going  to  vomit.  He  closed  his 
eyes  in  dizziness  and  leaned  against  the  trench 
wall,  and  let  himself  glide  to  the  earth.  Was 
he  to — to  see — that?  Was  he  to  see  men  be- 
ing murdered  right  alongside  of  him?  He 
tore  his  revolver  from  his  pocket,  emptied  it, 
and  threw  it  away.  Now  he  was  defenseless. 
And  suddenly  he  grew  calm  and  rose  to  his 
feet,  elevated  by  a  wonderful  composure, 
ready  to  let  himself  be  butchered  by  one  of 


118  MEN  IN  WAR 

those  panting  beasts  who  were  storming  on, 
chased  by  the  blind  fear  of  death.  He 
wanted  to  die  like  a  man,  without  hatred,  with- 
out rage,  with  clean  hands. 

A  hoarse  roar,  a  frightful,  dehumanized 
cry  almost  beside  him  wrenched  his  thoughts 
back  into  the  trench.  A  broad  stream  of  light 
and  fire,  travelling  in  a  steep  curve,  flowed 
blinding!^  down  beside  him  and  sprayed  over 
the  shoulder  of  the  tall  pock-marked  tailor  of 
the  first  line.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the 
man's  entire  left  side  flared  up  in  flames.  With 
a  howl  of  agony  he  threw  himself  to  the  ground, 
writhed  and  screamed  and  leaped  to  his  feet 
again,  and  ran  moaning  up  and  down  like  a 
living  torch,  until  he  broke  down,  half -charred, 
and  twitched,  and  then  lay  rigid.  Captain 
Marschner  saw  him  lying  there  and  smelt  the 
odor  of  burned  flesh,  and  his  eyes  involunta- 
rily strayed  to  his  own  hand  on  which  a  tiny, 
white  spot  just  under  his  thumb  reminded 
him  of  the  torments  he  had  suffered  in  his  boy- 
hood from  a  bad  burn. 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  119 

At  that  moment  a  jubilant  hurrah  roared 
through  the  trench,  rising  from  a  hundred  re- 
lieved throats.  The  attack  had  been  repulsed ! 
Lieutenant  Weixler  had  carefully  taken  aim 
at  the  thrower  of  the  liquid  fire  and  hit  at  the 
first  shot.  The  liquid  fire  had  risen  up  like  a 
fountain  from  the  falling  man's  stiffening 
hand  and  rained  down  on  his  own  comrades. 
Their  decimated  lines  shrank  back  suddenly 
before  the  unexpected  danger  and  they  fled 
pell-mell,  followed  by  the  furious  shots  from 
all  the  rifles. 

The  men  fell  down  as  if  lifeless,  with  slack 
faces  and  lusterless  eyes,  as  though  some  one 
had  turned  off  the  current  that  had  fed  those 
dead  creatures  with  strength  from  some  un- 
known source.  Some  of  them  leaned  against 
the  trench  wall  white  as  cheese,  and  held  their 
heads  over,  and  vomited  from  exhaustion. 
Marschner  also  felt  his  gorge  rising  and 
groped  his  way  toward  the  dugout.  He 
wanted  to  go  into  his  own  place  now  and  be 


120  MEN  IN  WAR 

alone  and  somehow  relieve  himself  of  the  de- 
spair that  held  him  in  its  grip. 

"Hello!"  Lieutenant  Weixler  cried  unex- 
pectedly through  the  silence,  and  bounded  over 
to  the  left  where  the  machine  guns  stood. 

The  captain  turned  back  again,  mounted 
the  ladder,  and  gazed  out  into  the  foreground 
of  the  field.  There,  right  in  front  of  the  wire- 
entanglements,  kneeled  an  Italian.  His  left 
arm  was  hanging  down  limp,  and  his  right  arm 
was  raised  beseechingly,  and  he  was  crawling 
toward  them  slowly.  A  little  farther  back, 
half  hidden  by  the  kneeling  man,  something 
kept  stirring  oh  the  ground.  There  three 
wounded  men  were  trying  to  creep  toward 
their  own  trench,  pressing  close  to  the  ground. 
One  could  see  very  clearly  how  they  sought 
cover  behind  corpses  and  now  and  then  lay 
motionless  so  as  to  escape  discovery  by  the  foe. 
It  was  a  pitiful  sight — those  God-forsaken 
creatures  surrounded  by  death,  each  moment 
like  an  eternity  above  them,  yet  clinging  with 
tooth  and  nail  to  their  little  remnant  of  life. 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  121 

"Come  on!  Isn't  there  a  rope  somewhere?" 
an  old  corporal  called  down  into  the  trench. 
"I'm  sorry  for  the  poor  devil  of  an  Italian. 
Let's  pull  him  in!" 

The  machine  guns  interrupted  him.  The 
kneeling  man  beside  the  wires  listened,  started 
as  if  to  run,  and  fell  upon  his  face.  The 
earth  behind  him  rose  in  dust  from  the  bullets 
and  the  others  beyond  raised  themselves  like 
snakes,  then  all  three  gave  a  short  leap  for- 
ward and — lay  very  still. 

For  a  moment  Captain  Marschner  stood 
speechless.  He  opened  his  lips,  but  no  sound 
came  from  his  throat.  At  last  his  tongue 
obeyed  him  and  he  yelled,  with  a  mad  choking 
fury  in  his  voice: 

"Lieutenant  Weixler!" 

"Yes,  sir,"  came  back  unconcernedly. 

Captain  Marschner  ran  toward  the  lieuten- 
ant with  clenched  fists  and  scarlet  face. 

"Did  you  fire?"  he  panted,  breathless. 

The  lieutenant  looked  at  him  in  astonish- 
ment, placed  his  hands  against  the  seams  of 


122  MEN  IN  WAR 

his  trousers  and  replied  with  perfect  formal- 
ity: 

"I  did,  sir." 

Marschner's  voice  failed  him  again  for  a 
moment.  His  teeth  chattered.  His  whole 
body  trembled  as  he  stammered: 

"Aren't  you  ashamed  of  yourself?  A  sol- 
dier doesn't  fire  at  helpless,  wounded  men. 
Remember  that!" 

Weixler  went  white. 

"I  beg  to  inform  you,  Captain,  that  the  one 
who  was  near  our  trench  was  hiding  the  others 
from  us.  I  couldn't  spare  him."  Then,  with 
a  sudden  explosion  of  anger,  he  added  defiant- 
ly: "Besides,  I  thought  we  had  quite  enough 
hungry  mouths  at  home  as  it  is." 

The  captain  jumped  at  him  like  a  snapping 
dog  and  stamped  his  foot  and  roared: 

"I'm  not  interested  in  what  you  think.  I 
forbid  you  to  shoot  at  the  wounded!  As  long 
as  I  am  commanding  officer  here  every 
wounded  man  shall  be  held  sacred,  whether  he 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  128 

tries  to  get  to  us  or  to  return  to  the  enemy. 
Do  you  understand  me?" 

The  lieutenant  drew  himself  up  haughtily. 

"In  that  case  I  must  take  the  liberty,  sir,  of 
begging  you  to  hand  me  that  order  in  writ- 
ing. I  consider  it  my  duty  to  inflict  as  much 
injury  upon  the  enemy  as  possible.  A  man 
that  I  let  off  to-day  may  be  cured  and  come 
back  two  months  later  and  perhaps  kill  ten  of 
my  comrades." 

For  a  moment  the  two  men  stood  still,  star- 
ing at  each  other  as  though  about  to  engage  in 
mortal  combat.  Then  Marschner  nodded  his 
head  almost  imperceptibly,  and  said  in  a  tone- 
less voice: 

"You  shall  have  it  in  writing." 

He  swung  on  his  heel  and  left.  Colored 
spheres  seemed  to  dance  before  his  eyes,  and 
he  had  to  summon  all  his  strength  to  keep  his 
equilibrium.  When  at  last  he  reached  the 
dugout,  he  fell  on  the  box  of  empty  tins  as 
if  he  had  been  beaten.  His  hatred  changed 
slowly  into  a  deep,  embittered  sense  of  dis- 


124  MEN  IN  WAR 

couragement.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  he 
was  in  the  wrong.  Not  at  the  bar  of  his  con- 
science! His  conscience  told  him  that  the 
deed  the  lieutenant  had  done  was  cowardly 
murder.  But  he  and  his  conscience  had  noth- 
ing to  say  here.  They  had  happened  to  stray 
into  this  place  and  would  have  to  stay  in  the 
wrong.  What  was  he  to  do?  If  he  gave  the 
order  in  writing,  he  would  afford  Weixler  his 
desired  opportunity  of  pushing  himself  for- 
ward and  invite  an  investigation  of  his  own 
conduct.  He  begrudged  the  malicious  crea- 
ture that  triumph.  Perhaps  it  were  better  to 
make  an  end  of  the  whole  business  by  going 
to  the  brigade  staff  and  telling  the  exalted 
gentlemen  there  frankly  to  their  faces  that  he 
could  no  longer  be  a  witness  to  that  bloody 
firing,  that  he  could  not  hunt  men  like  wild 
beasts,  no  matter  what  uniform  they  happened 
to  wear.  Then,  at  least,  this  playing  at  hide 
and  seek  would  end.  Let  them  shoot  him,  if 
they  wanted  to,  or  hang  him  like  a  common 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  125 

felon.  He  would  show  them  that  he  knew 
how  to  die. 

He  walked  out  into  the  trench  firmly,  and 
ordered  a  soldier  to  summon  Lieutenant 
Weixler.  Now  it  was  so  clear  within  him  and 
so  calm.  He  heard  the  hellish  shooting  that 
the  Italians  were  again  directing  at  the  trench 
and  went  forward  slowly  like  a  man  out  prom- 
enading. 

"They're  throwing  heavy  mines  at  us  now, 
Captain,"  the  old  corporal  announced,  and 
looked  at  Marschner  in  despair.  But  Marsch- 
ner  went  by  unmoved.  All  that  no  longer 
mattered  to  him.  The  lieutenant  would  take 
over  the  command.  That  was  what  he  was 
going  to  tell  him.  He  could  hardly  await  the 
moment  to  relieve  himself  of  the  responsibil- 
ity. 

As  Weixler  delayed  coming,  he  crept  up 
through  the  shaft  to  the  top. 

The  man's  small,  evil  eyes  flew  to  meet  him 
and  sought  the  written  order  in  his  hand.  The 


126  MEN  IN  WAR 

captain  acted  as  though  he  did  not  notice  the 
question  in  his  look,  and  said  imperiously: 

"Lieutenant,  I  turn  the  command  of  the 
company  over  to  you  until " 

A  short  roar  of  unheard-of  violence  cut  short 
his  speech.  He  had  the  feeling,  "That  will  hit 
me,"  and  that  very  instant  he  saw  something 
like  a  black  whale  rush  down  in  front  of  his 
eyes  from  out  of  the  heavens  and  plunge  head 
foremost  into  the  trench  wall  behind  him. 
Then  a  crater  opened  up  in  the  earth,  a  sea  of 
flame  that  raised  him  up  and  filled  his  lungs 
with  fire. 

On  slowly  recovering  his  consciousness  he 
found  himself  buried  under  a  huge  mound  of 
earth,  with  only  his  head  and  his  left  arm  free. 
He  had  no  feeling  in  his  other  limbs.  His 
whole  body  had  grown  weightless.  He  could 
not  find  his  legs.  Nothing  was  there  that  he 
could  move.  But  there  was  a  burning  and 
burrowing  that  came  from  somewhere  in  his 
brain,  scorched  his  forehead,  and  made  his 
tongue  swell  into  a  heavy,  choking  lump. 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  127 

"Water!"  he  moaned.  Was  there  no  one 
there  who  could  pour  a  drop  of  moisture  into 
the  burning  hollow  of  his  mouth?  No  one  at 
all?  Then  where  was  Weixler?  He  must  be 
near  by.  Or  else — was  it  possible  that  Weix- 
ler was  wounded  too?  Marschner  wanted  to 
jump  up  and  find  out  what  had  happened  to 
Weixler — he  wanted  to 

Like  an  overburdened  steam-crane  his  left 
hand  struggled  toward  his  head,  and  when  he 
at  last  succeeded  in  pushing  it  under  his  neck, 
he  felt  with  a  shudder  that  his  skull  offered  no 
resistance  and  his  hand  slid  into  a  warm,  soft 
mush,  and  his  hair,  pasty  with  coagulated 
blood,  stuck  to  his  fingers  like  warm,  moist 
felt. 

"Dying!"  went  through  him  with  a  chill. 
To  die  there — all  alone.  And  Weixler?  He 
had  to  find  out  what  had  happened  to — hap- 
pened to— 

With  a  superhuman  effort  he  propped  his 
head  up  on  his  left  hand  high  enough  to  have 
a  view  of  a  few  paces  along  the  trench.  Now 


128  MEN  IN  WAR 

he  saw  Weixler,  with  his  back  turned,  leaning 
on  his  right  side  against  the  trench  wall,  stand- 
ing there  crookedly,  his  left  hand  pressed 
against  his  body,  his  shoulders  hunched  as  if 
he  had  a  cramp.  The  captain  raised  himself 
a  little  higher  and  saw  the  ground  and  a  broad, 
dark  shadow  that  Weixler  cast.  Blood?  He 
was  bleeding?  Or  what?  Surely  that  was 
blood.  It  couldn't  be  anything  but  blood.  And 
yet  it  stretched  out  so  peculiarly  and  drew  it- 
self like  a  thin,  red  thread  up  to  Weixler,  up 
to  where  his  hand  pressed  his  body  as  though 
he  wanted  to  pull  up  the  roots  that  bound  him 
to  the  earth. 

The  captain  had  to  see !  He  pulled  his  head 
farther  out  from  under  the  mound — and  ut- 
tered a  hoarse  cry,  a  cry  of  infinite  horror. 
The  wretched  man  was  dragging  his  entrails 
behind  him! 

"Weixler!"  burst  from  him  in  a  shudder  of 
compassion. 

The  man  turned  slowly,  looked  down  at 
Marschner  questioningly,  pale,  sad,  with 


BAPTISM  OF  FIRE  129 

frightened  eyes.  He  stood  like  that  only  the 
fraction  of  a  second,  then  he  lost  his  balance, 
reeled,  and  fell  down,  and  was  lost  from  the 
captain's  circle  of  vision.  Their  glances 
scarcely  had  time  to  cross,  the  pallid  face  had 
merely  flitted  by.  And  yet  it  stood  there,  re- 
mained fixed  in  the  air,  with  a  mild,  soft,  plain- 
tive expression  about  the  narrow  lips,  an  un- 
forgettable air  of  gentle  anxious  resignation. 

"He  is  suffering !"  flashed  through  Marsch- 
ner.  "He  is  suffering!" — it  exulted  him. 
And  a  glow  suffused  his  pallor.  His  fingers, 
sticky  with  blood,  seemed  to  caress  the  air,  un- 
til his  head  sank  backward,  and  his  eyes  broke. 

The  first  soldiers  who  penetrated  the  tower- 
ing mound  of  earth  to  where  he  lay  found  him 
dead.  But  in  spite  of  his  ghastly  wound,  a 
contented,  almost  happy  smile  hovered  about 
his  lips. 


THE  VICTOR 


Ill 

THE  VICTOR 

ON  the  big  square  before  the  old  court- 
house, which  now  served  as  regimental 
headquarters  and  bore  the  magic  letters  A. 
O.  K.  as  a  sort  of  cabalistic  sign  on  its  front, 
a  military  band  played  every  afternoon  from 
three  to  four  at  command  of  His  Excellency. 
This  little  diversion  was  meant  to  compensate 
the  civilian  population  for  the  many  incon- 
veniences that  the  quartering  of  several  hun- 
dreds of  staff  officers  and  a  number  of  lesser 
officers  inevitably  brought  upon  them.  Then, 
too,  according  to  His  Excellency,  such  an  in- 
stitution helped  considerably  to  promote  the 
popularity  of  the  army  and  inspire  patriotism 
in  school  children  and  the  masses.  In  the  in- 
terest of  the  right  conduct  of  the  war  the  strict 
commander  deemed  it  highly  essential  to  fos- 

133 


184  MEN  IN  WAR 

ter  a  right  attitude  in  the  public  and  to  encour- 
age friendly  relations  between  military  and 
civilian  authorities — while  fully  preserving  his 
own  privileges.  It  was  essential  to  a  success- 
ful continuation  of  the  war.  Incidentally,  the 
fact  that  the  staff  officers,  with  His  Excellency 
at  their  head,  usually  took  their  black  coffee 
at  just  about  this  time  had  helped  a  good  deal 
to  bring  about  these  afternoon  concerts. 

It  was  indeed  delightful  to  sit  in  the  shade 
of  the  centenarian  plane-trees,  whose  inter- 
twining branches  overarched  the  entire  square 
like  the  nave  of  a  cathedral.  The  autumn  sun 
cast  a  dull  glow  on  the  walls  of  the  houses 
round  about,  and  shed  golden  rings  through 
the  thick  foliage  on  the  small  round  tables  ar- 
rayed in  long  rows  in  front  of  the  coffee- 
house. There  was  a  reserved  row  for  the 
staff  officers  set  in  snowy  linens,  with  little 
flower  vases  and  fresh  crisp  cakes,  which  the 
sergeant  of  the  commissary  brought  punc- 
tually at  three  o'clock  every  day  from  the  field 
bakery,  where  they  had  been  baked  with  par- 


THE  VICTOR  135 

ticular  care  under  the  personal  supervision  of 
the  chef  especially  for  His  Excellency  and 
staff. 

It  was  a  beautiful  gay  picture  of  lively, 
varied  metropolitan  life  that  surged  about  the 
music  pavilion.  Every  one  seemed  as  joyous 
and  carefree  as  on  the  Graben  in  Vienna  on  a 
sunny  spring  Sunday  in  times  of  undisturbed 
peace.  The  children  crowded  around  the  or- 
chestra, beat  the  measure,  and  applauded  en- 
thusiastically after  every  piece.  The  streets 
leading  into  the  square  were  filled  with  gig- 
gling girls  and  students  wearing  bright  caps; 
while  the  haute-volee,  the  wives  of  the  resident 
officials  and  merchants,  sat  in  the  confectioner's 
shop  on  the  square,  eagerly  awaiting  an  op- 
portunity to  show  their  righteous  indignation 
at  the  daring  millinery,  transparent  hose,  and 
little  more  than  knee-length  skirts  of  a  certain 
class  of  women  who  had  forced  their  way  into 
the  town  and,  despite  all  protests  and  orders, 
were  shamelessly  plying  their  trade  in  broad 
daylight. 


186  MEN  IN  WAR 

But  the  chief  tone  was  given  by  the  transient 
officers.  Whether  on  furlough  or  on  their  way 
back  to  the  front,  they  all  had  to  pass  through 
this  town,  and  enjoyed  in  deep  draughts  this 
first  or  last  day  of  freedom.  Besides,  if  any- 
thing was  needed  at  the  front — horse-shoe 
nails,  saddle-soap,  sanitary  appliances,  or  bot- 
tled beer — this  first  little  "big  town"  was  the 
quickest,  most  convenient  place  to  buy  it  in. 
An  unlucky  or  an  unpopular  man  merely  re- 
ceived a  commendation  for  his  bravery,  and 
that  settled  him.  But  the  man  who  enjoyed 
his-  commanding  officer's  favor  was  given  the 
preference  to  do  the  shopping  here  as  a  re- 
ward. And  an  amazing  ingenuity  developed 
in  discovering  immediate  necessities.  A  se- 
cret arithmetical  relation  undeniably  existed 
between  the  consumption  of  charcoal,  axle 
grease,  etc.,  by  individual  troop  divisions  and 
the  distance  of  their  outposts  from  this  favor- 
ite provisioning  station. 

Of  course,  the  pleasure  did  not  last  long. 
There  was  just  enough  time  for  a  hot  tub-bath, 


THE  VICTOR  137 

for  showing  off  one's  best  newly-pressed  uni- 
form once  or  twice  on  the  main  streets,  for  tak- 
ing two  meals  at  a  table  spread  with  a  table- 
cloth, and  for  spending  a  short  night  in  a  com- 
fortable bed — with,  or,  if  the  man  could  not 
help  it,  without  caresses — and  then  off  again, 
depressed  and  irritable,  off  to  the  maddeningly 
overcrowded  railroad  station,  back  to  the 
front,  into  the  damp  trench  or  the  sunbaked 
block  house. 

The  greed  of  life  in  these  young  officers, 
who  promenaded,  hungry-eyed,  through  the 
town,  the  racing  of  their  blood,  like  a  diver 
who  fills  his  lungs  full  in  one  second,  had  grad- 
ually infected  the  entire,  boresome  little  place. 
It  tingled,  it  foamed,  it  enriched  itself  and  be- 
came frivolous;  it  could  not  get  enough  sensa- 
tions, now  that  it  stood  in  the  center  of  world 
activities  and  had  a  claim  upon  real  events. 

Close-packed,  the  crowd  surged  past  the 
music  in  holiday  attire  and  holiday  mood  on 
this  ordinary  week-day,  quivering  to  the 
rhythm  of  the  Blue  Danube  Waltz,  which  the 


138  MEN  IN  WAR 

orchestra  was  playing  catchingly,  with  a  roll 
of  drums  and  a  clash  of  cymbals.  The  whole 
spectacle  brought  to  mind  the  goings-on  be- 
hind the  scenes  in  a  huge  playhouse  during 
the  performance  of  a  tragedy  with  choruses 
and  mob  scenes.  Nothing  was  seen  or  heard 
here  of  the  sanguinary  piece  being  enacted  at 
the  front.  The  features  of  the  actors  re- 
laxed, they  rested,  or  threw  themselves  into 
the  gay  hubbub,  heartily  glad  not  to  know  how 
the  tragedy  was  progressing;  exactly  as  real 
actors  behind  the  scenes  fall  back  into  their 
unprofessional  selves  until  they  get  their  next 
cue. 

Sitting  in  the  shade  of  the  old  trees,  over 
coffee  and  cigars,  comfortably  watching  these 
doings,  one  might  easily  be  deluded  into  think- 
ing that  the  drama  taking  place  at  the  front 
was  nothing  but  a  jolly  spectacular  play. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  whole  war  showed 
up  like  a  life-giving  stream  that  washes  orches- 
tras ashore,  brings  wealth  and  gaiety  to  the 
people,  is  navigated  by  promenading  officers, 


THE  VICTOR  139 

and  directed  by  portly,  comfortable  generals. 
No  suggestion  of  its  bloody  side,  no  roar  of 
artillery  reaching  your  ears,  no  wounded  sol- 
dier dragging  in  his  personal  wretchedness  and 
so  striking  a  false  note  in  the  general  jollifica- 
tion. 

Of  course,  it  had  not  always  been  like  that. 
In  the  first  days,  when  the  daily  concert  still 
had  the  charm  of  novelty,  all  the  regular, 
emergency  and  reserve  hospitals  in  the  neigh- 
borhood had  poured  their  vast  number  of  con- 
valescents and  slightly  wounded  men  into  the 
square.  But  that  lasted  only  two  days.  Then 
His  Excellency  summoned  the  head  army 
physician  to  a  short  interview  and  in  sharp 
terms  made  it  clear  to  the  crushed  culprit  what 
an  unfavorable  influence  such  a  sight  would 
have  upon  the  public,  and  expressed  the  hope 
that  men  wearing  bandages,  or  maimed  men, 
or  any  men  who  might  have  a  depressing  ef- 
fect on  the  general  war  enthusiasm,  should 
henceforth  remain  in  the  hospitals. 

He  was  not  defrauded  of  his  hope.     No  dis- 


140  MEN  IN  WAR 

agreeable  sight  ever  again  marred  his  pleasure 
when,  with  his  favorite  Havana  between  his 
teeth,  he  gazed  past  the  long  row  of  his  sub- 
ordinates out  on  the  street.  No  one  ever  went 
by  without  casting  a  shy,  deferential  side- 
glance  at  the  omnipotent  director  of  battles, 
who  sat  there  like  any  other  ordinary  human 
being,  sipping  his  coffee,  although  he  was  the 
celebrated  General  X,  unlimited  master  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  human  lives,  the  man 

the  papers  liked  to  call  the  "Victor  of ." 

There  was  not  a  human  being  in  the  town 
whose  fate  he  could  not  have  changed  with 
one  stroke  of  his  pen.  There  was  nothing  he 
could  not  promote  or  destroy  as  he  saw  fit. 
His  good  will  meant  orders  for  army  supplies 
and  wealth,  or  distinction  and  advancement; 
his  ill  will  meant  no  prospects  at  all,  or  an  order 
to  march  along  the  way  that  led  to  certain 
death. 

Leaning  back  comfortably  in  the  large 
wicker  chair,  a  chair  destined  in  all  likelihood 
some  day  to  become  an  object  of  historic  inter- 


THE  VICTOR  141 

est,  the  Powerful  One  jested  gaily  with  the 
wife  of  his  adjutant.  He  pointed  to  the  street, 
where  the  crowds  surged  in  the  brilliant  sun- 
shine, and  said  with  a  sort  of  satisfied, 
triumphant  delight  in  his  tone: 

"Just  look !  I  should  like  to  show  this  pic- 
ture to  our  pacifists,  who  always  act  as  though 
war  were  nothing  but  a  hideous  carnage.  You 
should  have  seen  this  hole  in  peace  times.  It 
was  enough  to  put  you  to  sleep.  Why,  the 
porter  at  the  corner  is  earning  more  to-day 
than  the  biggest  merchant  used  to  earn  before 
the  war.  And  have  you  noticed  the  young  fel- 
lows who  come  back  from  the  front?  Sun- 
burnt, healthy  and  happy!  Most  of  them  be- 
fore the  war  were  employed  in  offices.  They 
held  themselves  badly  and  were  dissipated  and 
looked  cheesy.  I  assure  you,  the  world  has 
never  been  so  healthy  as  it  is  now.  But  if  you 
look  at  your  newspapers,  you  read  about  a 
world-catastrophe,  about  a  blood-drained 
Europe,  and  a  whole  lot  of  other  stuff." 

He  raised  his  bushy  white  eyebrows  until 


142  MEN  IN  WAR 

they  reached  the  middle  of  his  bulging  fore- 
head, and  his  small,  piercing  black  eyes 
skimmed  observantly  over  the  faces  of  those 
present. 

His  Excellency's  pronouncement  was  a  sug- 
gestion to  the  others  and  was  immediately 
taken  up.  At  every  table  the  conversa- 
tion grew  animated,  the  benefits  of  the  war 
were  told  over,  and  the  wits  cracked  jokes  at 
the  expense  of  the  pacifists.  There  was  not  a 
single  man  in  the  whole  assemblage  who  did 
not  owe  at  least  two  blessings  to  the  war: 
financial  independence  and  such  munificence 
of  living  as  only  much-envied  money  magnates 
have  allotted  to  them  in  times  of  peace. 
Among  this  circle  of  people  the  war  wore  the 
mask  of  a  Santa  Claus  with  a  bag  full  of  won- 
derful gifts  on  his  back  and  assignments  for 
brilliant  careers  in  his  hand.  To  be  sure  here 
and  there  a  gentleman  was  to  be  seen  wearing 
a  crepe-band  on  his  sleeve  for  a  brother  or  a 
brother-in-law  who,  as  officer,  had  seen  that 
other  aspect  of  the  war,  the  Gorgon's  face. 


THE  VICTOR  148 

Yet  the  Gorgon's  face  was  so  far  away,  more 
than  sixty  miles  in  a  bee-line,  and  an  occa- 
sional excursion  in  its  vicinity  was  an  exciting 
little  adventure,  a  brief  titillation  of  the  nerves. 
Inside  an  hour  the  automobile  raced  back  to 
safety,  back  to  the  bath-tub,,  and  you  prom- 
enaded asphalt  streets  again  in  shining  pumps. 
So,  who  would  refrain  from  joining  in  the 
hymn  of  praise  to  His  Excellency? 

The  mighty  man  contentedly  listened  a 
while  longer  to  the  babel  of  voices  aroused  by 
what  he  had  said,  then  gradually  sank  back 
into  his  reflections,  and  gazed  ahead  of  him 
seriously.  He  saw  the  sunbeams  sifting 
through  the  thick  foliage  and  glittering  on 
the  crosses  and  stars  that  covered  the  left  half 
of  his  chest  in  three  close  rows.  It  was  a  mag- 
nificent and  complete  collection  of  every  deco- 
ration that  the  rulers  of  four  great  empires 
had  to  bestow  upon  a  man  for  heroism,  con- 
tempt of  death,  and  high  merit.  There  was  no 

honor  left  for  the  Victor  of still  to  aspire 

to.     And  only  eleven  short  months  of  war  had 


144  MEN  IN  WAR 

cast  all  that  at  his  feet.  It  was  the  harvest  of 
but  a  single  year  of  war.  Thirty-nine  years 
of  his  life  had  previously  gone  in  the  service 
in  tedious  monotony,  in  an  eternal  struggle 
with  sordid  everyday  cares.  He  had  worn 
himself  out  over  all  the  exigencies  of  a  petty 
bourgeois  existence,  like  a  poor  man  ashamed 
of  his  poverty,  making  pathetic  efforts  to  con- 
ceal a  tear  in  his  clothes  and  always  seeing  the 
telltale  hole  staring  out  from  under  the  cover- 
ing. For  thirty-nine  years  he  had  never 
swerved  from  disciplining  himself  to  abstemi- 
ousness, and  there  was  much  gold  on  his  uni- 
form, but  very  little  in  his  pocket.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  he  had  been  quite  ready  for  some 
time  to  quit.  He  was  thoroughly  tired  of  the 
cheap  pleasure  of  tyrannizing  over  the  young 
officers  on  the  drill  ground. 

But  then  the  miracle  occurred!  Over  night 
the  grouchy,  obscure  old  gentleman  changed 
into  a  sort  of  national  hero,  a  European 

celebrity.     He  was  "the  Victor  of !"     It 

was  like  in  a  fairy  tale,  when  the  good  fairy 


THE  VICTOR  145 

appears  and  frees  the  enchanted  prince  from 
his  hideous  disguise,  and  he  emerges  in  his 
glowing  youth,  surrounded  by  knights  and 
lackeys,  and  enters  his  magnificent  castle. 

To  be  sure  the  miracle  had  not  brought  the 
general  the  glow  of  youth.  But  it  put  elas- 
ticity into  him.  The  eventful  year  had  given 
him  a  shaking  up,  and  his  veins  pulsed  with  the 
joy  of  life  and  the  energy  for  work  of  a  man 
in  his  prime.  It  was  as  a  sovereign  that  he 
sat  there  in  the  shadow  of  the  plane-trees,  with 
good  fortune  sparkling  on  his  chest  and  a  city 
lying  at  his  feet.  Nothing,  not  a  single  thing, 
was  lacking  to  make  the  fairy  tale  perfect. 

In  front  of  the  coffee-house,  guarded  by  two 
sturdy  corporals,  rested  the  great  grey  beast, 
with  the  lungs  of  a  hundred  horses  in  its  chest, 
awaiting  the  cranking-up  to  rush  its  master 
off  to  his  castle  high  above  town  and  valley. 
Where  were  the  days  when,  with  his  general's 
stripes  on  his  trousers,  he  took  the  street-car 
to  his  home,  befitting  his  station  in  life,  a  six- 
room  apartment  that  was  really  a  five-room 


146  MEN  IN  WAR 

apartment  plus  a  closet?  Where  was  all  that? 
Centuries  had  given  their  noblest  powers,  gen- 
erations had  expended  their  artistic  skill  in 
filling  the  castle  requisitioned  for  His  Excel- 
lency, the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the th 

Army,  with  the  choicest  treasure.  Sun  and 
time  had  done  their  best  to  mellow  the  dazzle 
of  the  accumulated  wealth  till  it  shone  in  sub- 
dued grandeur  as  through  a  delicate  veil.  Any 
man  master  in  that  house,  who  mounted  those 
broad  steps  and  shouted  his  wishes  in  those 
aristocratic  rooms,  necessarily  felt  like  a  king 
and  could  not  take  the  war  in  any  other  way 
than  as  a  glorious  fairy  tale. 

Indeed,  was  there  ever  a  royal  household  that 
approached  the  miraculous  more  closely?  In 
the  kitchen  reigned  a  master  of  the  culinary 
art,  the  chef  of  the  best  hotel  in  the  country, 
who  in  other  circumstances  would  not  have 
been  satisfied  with  double  the  wages  of  a  gen- 
eral and  was  now  getting  only  a  dollar  a  day. 
Yet  he  was  using  every  bit  of  his  skill.  He 
had  never  been  so  eager  to  please  the  palate 


THE  VICTOR  147 

of  him  whom  he  served.  The  roast  he  pre- 
pared was  the  finest  piece  of  meat  to  be  selected 
from  among  the  two  hundred  oxen  that  daily 
gave  up  their  lives  to  the  army  for  the  father- 
land. The  men  who  served  the  roast  on  silver 
platters,  wrought  by  pupils  of  Benvenuto  for 
the  ancestors  of  the  house,  were  generals  of 
their  trade,  who  in  peace  times  had  had  their 
clothes  built  in  London,  and  stood  about  trem- 
blingly awaiting  each  sign  from  their  master. 
And  this  entire  retinue,  this  whole  princely 
household,  functioned  quite  automatically,  and 
—entirely  without  cost !  The  master  for  whom 
every  one  slaved  never  once  had  to  perform 
that  inevitable  nuisance  of  putting  his  hand 
in  his  pocket  to  draw  out  his  purse.  The  gaso- 
line circulated  inexhaustibly  through  the  veins 
of  the  three  motor  cars,  which  lounged  day  and 
night  on  the  marble  flagging  of  the  courtyard. 
As  by  magic  everything  flowed  in  that  eye  and 
palate  could  desire. 

No   servant   asked    for   wages,   everything 
seemed  to  be  there  of  itself,  as  in  fairy  castles 


148  MEN  IN  WAR 

where  it  is  enough  to  wish  for  a  thing  in  order 
to  have  it. 

But  that  was  not  all.  It  was  not  the  whole 
of  the  miracle  that  the  table  spread  itself  every 
day  of  the  month  and  the  store-rooms  filled 
themselves  with  provisions.  When  the  first  of 
the  month  came  round,  bank-notes  instead  of 
bills  came  fluttering  into  the  house. 

No  worry,  no  disputing,  no  stinting  of  one's 
self  to  be  borne  with  a  sigh.  With  an  air  of 
boredom  one  stuffed  his  pockets  with  green- 
backs, which  were  really  quite  superfluous  in 
this  lazy  man's  paradise  that  the  war  had 
opened  up  to  its  vassals. 

One  single  lowering  cloud  now  and  then 
streaked  the  shining  firmament  of  this  won- 
derland and  cast  its  shadow  on  the  brow  of 
His  Excellency.  Sometimes  his  pure  joy  was 
disturbed  by  the  thought  that  the  fairy  tale 
might  give  way  to  reality  and  he  might  be 
awakened  from  the  glorious  dream.  It  was 
not  peace  that  His  Excellency  dreaded.  He 
never  even  thought  of  peace.  But  what  if  the 


THE  VICTOR  149 

wall  so  artfully  constructed  out  of  human 
bodies  should  begin  to  totter  some  day  ?  What 
if  the  enemy  were  to  penetrate  all  the  fortifica- 
tions, and  discipline  were  to  give  way  to  panic, 
and  the  mighty  wall  should  dissolve  into  its 
component  parts,  human  beings  fleeing  madly 
to  save  their  lives?  Then  the  "Victor  of 

,"  the  almighty  fairy  tale  king,  would  sink 

back  again  into  the  sordid  commonplace  of  old. 
He  would  have  to  eke  out  his  existence  in  some 
obscure  corner,  crowd  his  trophies  into  some 
modest  apartment,  and  content  himself,  like 
other  discharged  officers,  with  being  a  coffee- 
house king.  Were  he  to  suffer  a  single  de- 
feat, the  world  would  instantly  forget  its  en- 
thusiasm. Another  general  would  assume  the 
reign,  another  sovereign  would  fly  through  the 
town  in  a  motor  car,  and  the  vast  retinue  of 
servants  would  reverently  bow  before  their  new 
ruler.  The  old  one  would  be  nothing  but  a 
past  episode,  a  scarecrow  revealed,  which  any 
sparrow  impudently  besmirches. 

The    general's    pudgy    hand    involuntarily 


150  MEN  IN  WAR 

clenched  itself,  and  the  dreaded  frown,  the 
"storm-signal"  that  his  own  soldiers,  as  well  as 
the  enemy,  had  learned  to  fear,  appeared  for  a 
moment  on  his  prominent  forehead.  Then  his 
face  cleared  again,  and  His  Excellency 
looked  around  proudly. 

No!     The  Victor  of  was  not  afraid. 

His  wall  stood  firm  and  swayed  not.  For 
three  months  every  report  that  emissaries 
brought  to  camp  had  told  of  the  enormous 
preparations  being  made  by  the  enemy.  For 
three  months  they  had  been  storing  up  ammu- 
nition and  gathering  together  their  forces  for 
the  tremendous  offensive.  And  the  offensive 
had  begun  the  night  before.  The  general 
knew  that  the  crowd  gaily  thronging  in  the 
sun  would  not  read  in  the  newspaper  till  the 
next  morning  that  out  at  the  front  a  fierce  bat- 
tle had  been  raging  for  the  past  twenty  hours, 
and  hardly  sixty  miles  from  the  promenade 
shells  were  bursting  without  cease,  and  a  heavy 
rain  of  hot  iron  was  pouring  down  upon  his 
soldiers.  Three  infantry  attacks  had  already 


THE  VICTOR  151 

been  reported  as  repulsed,  and  now  the  artil- 
lery was  hammering  with  frenzied  fury,  a 
prologue  to  fresh  conflicts  during  the  night. 

Well,  let  them  come! 

.With  a  jerk,  His  Excellency  sat  up,  and 
while  his  fingers  beat  on  the  table  in  tune  to 
the  Blue  Danube,  a  tense  expression  came  into 
his  face,  as  though  he  could  hear  the  terrific 
drumfire  raging  at  the  front  like  a  hurricane. 
His  preparations  had  been  made:  the  human 
reservoir  had  been  filled  to  overflowing.  Two 
hundred  thousand  strong  young  lads  of  the 
very  right  age  lay  behind  the  lines  ready  at 
the  proper  moment  to  be  thrown  in  front  of 
the  steam-roller  until  it  caught  and  stuck  in 
a  marsh  of  blood  and  bones.  Just  let  them 
cornel  The  more,  the  merrier!  The  Victor 
of  -  —  was  prepared  to  add  another  branch 
to  his  laurels,  and  his  eyes  sparkled  like  the 
medals  on  his  breast. 

His  adjutant  got  up  from  the  table  next  to 
his,  approached  hesitatingly,  and  whispered 
a  few  words  in  His  Excellency's  ear. 


152  MEN  IN  WAR 

The  great  man  shook  his  head,  waving  the 
adjutant  off. 

"It  is  an  important  foreign  newspaper,  Your 
Excellency,"  the  adjutant  urged;  and  when 
his  commander  still  waved  him  aside,  he 
added  significantly:  "The  gentleman  has 
brought  a  letter  of  recommendation  from  head- 
quarters, Your  Excellency." 

At  this  the  general  finally  gave  in,  arose 
with  a  sigh,  and  said,  half  in  jest,  half  in 
annoyance  to  the  lady  beside  him: 

"A  drumfire  would  be  more  welcome!" 
Then  he  followed  his  adjutant  and  shook  hands 
jovially  with  the  bald  civilian,  who  popped  up 
from  his  seat  and  bent  at  the  middle  like  a 
penknife  snapping  shut.  His  Excellency  in- 
vited him  to  be  seated. 

The  war  correspondent  stammered  a  few 
words  of  admiration,  and  opened  his  note-book 
expectantly,  a  whole  string  of  questions  on 
his  lips.  But  His  Excellency  did  not  let  him 
speak.  In  the  course  of  time  he  had  con- 
structed for  occasions  like  this  a  speech  in 


THE  VICTOR  153 

which  every  point  was  well  thought  out  and 
which  made  a  simple  impression.  He  deliv- 
ered it  now,  speaking  with  emphasis  and  paus- 
ing occasionally  to  recall  what  came  next. 

To  begin  with  he  spoke  of  his  brave  soldiers, 
praising  their  courage,  their  contempt  of 
death,  their  wonderful  deeds  of  valor.  Then 
he  expressed  regret  at  the  impossibility  of  re- 
warding each  soldier  according  to  his  merits, 
and — this  in  a  raised  voice — invoked  the 
fatherland's  eternal  gratitude  for  such  loyalty 
and  self-abnegation  even  unto  death.  Point- 
ing to  the  heavy  crop  of  medals  on  his  chest, 
he  explained  that  the  distinctions  awarded  him 
were  really  an  honor  done  to  his  men.  Finally 
he  wove  in  a  few  well-chosen  remarks  compli- 
menting the  enemy's  fighting  ability  and  cau- 
tious leadership,  and  concluded  with  an  expres- 
sion of  his  unshakable  confidence  in  ultimate 
victory. 

The  newspaper  man  listened  respectfully 
and  occasionally  jotted  down  a  note.  The 
main  thing,  of  course,  was  to  observe  the 


154  MEN  IN  WAR 

Great  One's  appearance,  his  manner  of 
speech,  his  gestures,  and  to  sum  up  his  per- 
sonality in  a  few  striking  phrases. 

His  Excellency  now  discarded  his  military 
role,  and  changed  himself  from  the  Victor  of 
into  the  man  of  the  world. 

"You  are  going  to  the  front  now?"  he  asked 
with  a  courteous  smile,  and  responded  to  the 
correspondent's  enthusiastic  "Yes"  with  a 
deep,  melancholy  sigh. 

"How  fortunate  you  are!  I  envy  you. 
You  see,  the  tragedy  in  the  life  of  the  general 
of  to-day  is  that  he  cannot  lead  his  men  per- 
sonally into  the  fray.  He  spends  his  whole 
life  preparing  for  war,  he  is  a  soldier  in  body 
and  soul,  and  yet  he  knows  the  excitement  of 
battle  only  from  hearsay." 

The  correspondent  was  delighted  with  this 
subjective  utterance  which  he  had  managed  to 
evoke.  Now  he  could  show  the  commander  in 
the  sympathetic  role  of  one  who  renounces,  one 
who  cannot  always  do  as  he  would.  He  bent 
over  his  note-book  for  an  instant.  When  he 


THE  VICTOR  155 

looked  up  again  he  found  to  his  astonishment 
that  His  Excellency's  face  had  completely 
changed.  His  brow  was  furrowed,  his  eyes 
stared  wide-open  with  an  anxiously  expectant 
look  in  them  at  something  back  of  the  cor- 
respondent. 

The  correspondent  turned  and  saw  a  pale, 
emaciated  infantry  captain  making  straight 
toward  His  Excellency.  The  man  was  grin- 
ning and  he  had  a  peculiar  shambling  walk. 
He  came  closer  and  closer,  and  stared  with 
glassy,  glaring  eyes,  and  laughed  an  ugly 
idiotic  laugh.  The  adjutant  started  up  from 
his  seat  frightened.  The  veins  on  His  Excel- 
lency's forehead  swelled  up  like  ropes.  The 
correspondent  saw  an  assassination  coming 
and  turned  pale.  The  uncanny  captain 
swayed  to  within  a  foot  or  two  of  the  general 
and  his  adjutant,  then  stood  still,  giggled  fool- 
ishly, and  snatched  at  the  orders  on  His  Ex- 
cellency's chest  like  a  child  snatching  at  a 
beam  of  light. 

"Beautiful — shines  beautifully — "  he  gur- 


156  MEN  IN  WAR 

gled  in  a  thick  voice.  Then  he  pointed  his 
frightfully  thin,  trembling  forefinger  up  at 
the  sun  and  shrieked,  "Sun!"  Next  he 
snatched  at  the  medals  again  and  said, 
"Shines  beautifully."  And  all  the  while  his 
restless  glance  wandered  hither  and  thither  as 
if  looking  for  something,  and  his  ugly,  bestial 
laugh  repeated  itself  after  each  word. 

His  Excellency's  right  fist  was  up  in  the 
air  ready  for  a  blow  at  the  fellow's  chest  for 
approaching  him  so  disrespectfully,  but,  in- 
stead, he  laid  his  hand  soothingly  on  the  poor 
idiot's  shoulder. 

"I  suppose  you  have  come  from  the  hospital 
to  listen  to  the  music,  Captain?"  he  said,  wink-; 
ing  to  his  adjutant.  "It's  a  long  ride  to  the 
hospital  in  the  street-car.  Take  my  automo- 
bile. It's  quicker." 

"Auto — quicker,"  echoed  the  lunatic  with  his 
hideous  laugh.  He  patiently  let  himself  be 
taken  by  the  arm  and  led  away.  He  turned 
round  once  with  a  grin  at  the  glittering  medals, 
but  the  adjutant  pulled  him  along. 


THE  VICTOR  157 

The  general  followed  them  with  his  eyes 
until  they  entered  the  machine.  The  "storm- 
signal"  was  hoisted  ominously  between  his  eye- 
brows. He  was  boiling  with  rage  at  such  care- 
lessness in  allowing  a  creature  like  that  to  walk 
abroad  freely.  But  in  the  nick  of  time  he  re- 
membered the  civilian  at  his  side,  and  con- 
trolled himself,  and  said  with  a  shrug  of  the 
shoulders : 

"Yes,  these  are  some  of  the  sad  aspects  of 
the  war.  You  see,  it  is  just  because  of  such 
things  that  the  leader  must  stay  behind,  where 
nothing  appeals  to  his  heart.  No  general 
could  ever  summon  the  necessary  severity  to 
direct  a  war  if  he  had  to  witness  all  the  misery 
at  the  front." 

"Very  interesting,"  the  correspondent 
breathed  gratefully,  and  closed  his  book.  "I 
fear  I  have  already  taken  up  too  much  of 
Your  Excellency's  valuable  time,  but  may  I 
be  permitted  one  more  question?  When  does 
Your  Excellency  hope  for  peace?" 

The  general  started,  bit  his  underlip,  and 


158  MEN  IN  WAR 

glanced  aside  with  a  look  that  would  have  made 
every  staff  officer  of  the  -  — th  Army  shake  in 
his  boots.  With  a  visible  effort  he  put  on  his 
polite  smile  and  pointed  across  the  square  to 
the  open  portals  of  the  old  cathedral. 

"The  only  advice  I  can  give  is  for  you  to  go 
over  there  and  ask  our  Heavenly  Father.  He 
is  the  only  one  who  can  answer  that  ques- 
tion." 

A  friendly  nod,  a  hearty  handshake,  then 
His  Excellency  strode  to  his  office  across  the 
square  amid  the  respectful  salutations  of  the 
crowd. 

When  he  entered  the  building  the  dreaded 
furrow  cleaving  his  brow  was  deeper  than  ever. 
An  orderly  tremblingly  conducted  him  to  the 
office  of  the  head  army  physician.  For  sev- 
eral minutes  the  entire  house  held  its  breath 
while  the  voice  of  the  Mighty  One  thundered 
through  the  corridors.  He  ordered  the  fine  old 
physician  to  come  to  his  table  as  if  he  were  his 
secretary,  and  dictated  a  decree  forbidding  all 
the  inmates  of  the  hospitals,  without  distinc- 


THE  VICTOR  159 

tion  or  exception,  whether  sick  or  wounded,  to 
leave  the  hospital  premises.  "For" — the  de- 
cree concluded — "if  a  man  is  ill,  he  belongs  in 
bed,  and  if  he  feels  strong  enough  to  go  to 
town  and  sit  in  the  coffee-house,  he  should  re- 
port at  the  front,  where  his  duty  calls  him." 

This  pacing  to  and  fro  with  clinking  spurs 
and  this  thundering  at  the  cowering  old  doc- 
tor calmed  his  anger.  The  storm  had  about 
blown  over  when  unfortunately  the  general's 
notice  was  drawn  to  the  report  from  the 
brigade  that  was  being  most  heavily  beset  by 
the  enemy  and  had  suffered  desperate  losses 
and  was  holding  its  post  only  in  order  to  make 
the  enterprise  as  costly  as  possible  to  the  ad- 
vancing enemy.  Behind  it  the  mines  had  al- 
ready been  laid,  and  a  whole  new  division  was 
already  in  wait  in  subterranean  hiding  ready 
to  prepare  a  little  surprise  for  the  enemy  after 
the  doomed  brigade  had  gone  to  its  destruc- 
tion. Of  course,  the  general  had  not  consid- 
ered it  necessary  to  inform  the  brigadier  that 
he  was  holding  a  lost  post  and  all  he  was  to  do 


160  MEN  IN  WAR 

was  to  sell  his  hide  as  dearly  as  possible.  The. 
longer  the  struggle  raged  the  better!  And 
men  fight  so  much  more  stubbornly  if  they 
hope  for  relief  until  the  very  last  moment. 

All  this  His  Excellency  himself  had  or- 
dained, and  he  was  really  greatly  rejoiced  that 
the  brigade  was  still  holding  out  after  three 
overwhelming  infantry  charges.  But  now  a 
report  lay  before  him  which  went  against  all 
military  tradition;  and  it  brought  back  the 
storm  that  had  been  about  to  subside. 

The  major-general  (His  Excellency  made 
careful  note  of  his  name)  described  the  fright- 
ful effect  of  the  drumfire  in  a  nervous,  talka- 
tive way  that  was  most  unmilitary.  Instead 
of  confining  himself  to  a  statement  of  num- 
bers, he  explained  at  length  how  his  brigade 
had  been  decimated  and  his  men's  power  of 
resistance  was  gone.  He  concluded  his  report 
by  begging  for  reinforcements,  else  it  would 
be  impossible  for  the  remnant  of  his  company 
to  withstand  the  attack  to  take  place  that 
night. 


THE  VICTOR  161 

"Impossible?  Impossible?"  His  Excel- 
lency blared  like  a  trumpet  into  the  ears  of  the 
gentlemen  standing  motionless  around  him. 
"Impossible?  Since  when  is  the  commander 
instructed  by  his  subordinates  as  to  what  is 
possible  and  what  is  not?" 

Blue  in  the  face  with  rage  he  took  a  pen  and 
wrote  this  single  sentence  in  answer  to  the  re- 
port: "The  sector  is  to  be  held."  Under- 
neath he  signed  his  name  in  the  perpendicular 
scrawl  that  every  school  child  knew  from  the 
picture  card  of  the  "Victor  of ."  He  him- 
self put  the  envelope  into  the  motor-cyclist's 
hand  for  it  to  be  taken  to  the  wireless  station, 
as  the  telephone  wires  of  the  brigade  had  long 
since  been  shot  into  the  ground.  Then  he  blus- 
tered like  a  storm  cloud  from  room  to  room, 
stayed  half  an  hour  in  the  card  room,  had  a 
short  interview  with  the  chief  of  the  staff,  and 
asked  to  have  the  evening  reports  sent  to  the 
castle.  When  his  rumbling  "Good  night,  gen- 
tlemen 1"  at  last  resounded  in  the  large  hall 
under  the  dome,  every  one  heaved  a  sigh  of  re- 


162  MEN  IN  WAR 

lief.  The  guard  stood  at  attention,  the  chauf- 
feur started  the  motor,  and  the  big  machine 
plunged  into  the  street  with  a  hellow  like 
wild  beast's.  Panting  and  tooting,  it  darted 
its  way  through  the  narrow  streets  out  into  the 
open,  where  the  castle  like  a  fairy  palace  looked 
down  into  the  misty  valley  below  with  its  pearly 
rows  of  illuminated  windows. 

With  his  coat  collar  turned  up,  His  Excel- 
lency sat  in  the  car  and  reflected  as  he  usually 
did  at  this  time  on  the  things  that  had  hap- 
pened during  the  day.  The  correspondent 
came  to  his  mind  and  the  man's  stupid  ques- 
tion, "When  does  Your  Excellency  hope  for 
peace?"  Hope?  Was  it  credible  that  a  man 
who  must  have  some  standing  in  his  profes- 
sion, else  he  never  would  have  received  a  let- 
ter of  recommendation  from  headquarters,  had 
so  little  suspicion  of  how  contrary  that  was  to 
every  soldierly  feeling?  Hope  for  peace? 
What  good  was  a  general  to  expect  from 
peace?  Could  this  civilian  not  comprehend 
that  a  commanding  general  really  com- 


THE  VICTOR  163 

manded,  was  really  a  general,  just  in  times  of 
war,  while  in  times  of  peace  he  was  like  a  strict 
teacher  in  galloons,  an  old  duffer  who  occa- 
sionally shouted  himself  hoarse  out  of  pure  en- 
nui? Was  he  to  long  for  that  dreary  tread- 
mill existence  again?  Was  he  to  hope  for  the 
time — to  please  the  gentlemen  civilians — when 

he,  the  victorious  leader  of  the th  Army, 

would  be  used  again  merely  for  reviews  ?  Was 
he  to  await  impatiently  going  back  to  that 
other  hopeless  struggle  between  a  meager  sal- 
ary and  a  life  polished  for  show,  a  struggle  in 
which  the  lack  of  money  always  came  out  tri- 
umphant? 

The  general  leaned  back  on  the  cushioned 
seat  in  annoyance. 

Suddenly  the  car  stopped  with  a  jerk  right 
in  the  middle  of  the  road.  The  general 
started  up  in  surprise  and  was  about  to  ques- 
tion the  chauffeur,  when  the  first  big  drops 
of  rain  fell  on  his  helmet.  It  was  the  same 
storm  that  earlier  in  the  afternoon  had  given 
the  men  at  the  front  a  short  respite. 


164,  MEN  IN  WAR 

The  two  corporals  jumped  out  and  quickly 
put  up  the  top.  His  Excellency  sat  stark  up- 
right, leaned  his  ear  to  the  wind,  and  listened 
attentively.  Mingled  with  the  rushing  sound 
of  the  wind  he  caught  quite  clearly,  but  very 
— very  faintly  a  dull  growling,  a  hollow, 
scarcely  audible  pounding,  like  the  distant 
echo  of  trees  being  chopped  down  in  the  woods. 

Drumfire ! 

His  Excellency's  eyes  brightened.  A  gleam 
of  inner  satisfaction  passed  over  his  face  so 
recently  clouded  with  vexation. 

Thank  God!    There  still  was  war! 


MY  COMRADE 


IV 
MY  COMRADE 

(A  Diary) 

THIS  world  war  has  given  me  a  comrade, 
too.  You  couldn't  find  a  better  one. 

It  is  exactly  fourteen  months  ago  that 
I  met  him  for  the  first  time  in  a  small  piece  of 
woods  near  the  road  to  Goerz.  Since  then  he 
has  never  left  my  side  for  a  single  moment. 
We  sat  up  together  hundreds  of  nights 
through,  and  still  he  walks  beside  me  stead- 
fastly. 

Not  that  he  intrudes  himself  upon  me.  On 
the  contrary.  He  conscientiously  keeps  the 
distance  that  separates  him,  the  common  sol- 
dier, from  the  officer  that  he  must  respect  in 
me.  Strictly  according1  to  regulations  he 

stands  three  paces  off  in  some  corner  or  be- 

167 


168  MEN  IN  WAR 

hind  some  column  and  only  dares  to  cast  his 
shy  glances  at  me. 

He  simply  wants  to  be  near  me.  That's  all 
he  asks  for,  just  for  me  to  let  him  be  in  my 
presence. 

Sometimes  I  close  my  eyes  to  be  by  myself 
again,  quite  by  myself  for  a  few  moments,  as 
I  used  to  be  before  the  war.  Then  he  fixes  his 
gaze  upon  me  so  firmly  and  penetratingly  and 
with  such  obstinate,  reproachful  insistence  that 
it  burns  into  my  back,  settles  under  my  eye- 
lids, and  so  steeps  my  being  with  the  picture 
of  him  that  I  look  round,  if  a  little  time  has 
passed  without  his  reminding  me  of  his  pres- 
ence. 

He  has  gnawed  his  way  into  me,  he  has 
taken  up  his  abode  within  me.  He  sits  inside 
of  me  like  the  mysterious  magician  at  moving- 
picture  shows  who  turns  the  crank  inside  of  the 
black  booth  above  the  heads  of  the  spectators. 
He  casts  his  picture  through  my  eyes  upon 
every  wall,  every  curtain,  every  flat  surface 
that  my  eyes  fall  on. 


MY  COMRADE  169 

But  even  when  there  is  no  background  for 
his  picture,  even  when  I  frantically  look  out  of 
the  window  and  stare  into  the  distance  so  as  to 
be  rid  of  him  for  a  short  while,  even  then  he  is 
there,  hovering  in  front  of  me  as  though  im- 
paled upon  the  lance  of  my  gaze,  like  a  banner 
swaying  at  the  head  of  a  parade.  If  X-rays 
could  penetrate  the  skull,  one  would  find  his 
picture  woven  into  my  brain  in  vague  outline, 
like  the  figures  in  old  tapestries. 

I  remember  a  trip  I  took  before  the  war 
from  Munich  to  Vienna  on  the  Oriental  Ex- 
press. I  looked  out  upon  the  autumnal  mel- 
lowness of  the  country  around  the  Bavarian 
lakes  and  the  golden  glow  of  the  Wiener  Wald. 
But  across  all  this  glory  that  I  drank  in  lean- 
ing back  on  the  comfortable  seat  in  luxurious 
contentment,  there  steadily  ran  an  ugly  black 
spot — a  flaw  in  the  window-pane.  That  is  the 
way  my  obstinate  comrade  flits  across  woods 
and  walls,  stands  still  when  I  stand  still,  dances 
over  the  faces  of  passers-by,  over  the  asphalt 
paving  wet  from  the  rain,  over  everything  my 


170  MEN  IN  WAR 

eyes  happen  to  fall  upon.  He  interposes  him- 
self between  me  and  the  world,  just  like  that 
flaw  in  the  window-pane,  which  degraded 
everything  I  saw  to  the  quality  of  the  back- 
ground that  it  made. 

The  physicians,  of  course,  know  better. 
They  do  not  believe  that  He  lives  in  me  and 
stays  by  me  like  a  sworn  comrade.  From  the 
standpoint  of  science  it  rests  with  me  not  to 
drag  him  round  any  longer,  but  to  give  him  his 
dismissal,  precisely  as  I  might  have  freed  my- 
self from  the  annoying  spot  by  angrily  smash- 
ing the  window-pane.  The  physicians  do  not 
believe  that  one  human  being  can  unite  him- 
self at  death  with  another  human  being  and 
continue  to  live  on  in  him  with  obstinate  per- 
sistence. It  is  their  opinion  that  a  man  stand- 
ing at  a  window  should  see  the  house  opposite 
but  never  the  wall  of  the  room  behind  his 
back. 

The  physicians  only  believe  in  things  that 
are.  Such  superstitions  as  that  a  man  can 
carry  dead  men  within  him  and  see  them  stand- 


MY  COMRADE  171 

ing  in  front  of  him  so  distinctly  that  they  hide 
a  picture  behind  them  from  his  sight,  do  not 
come  within  the  range  of  the  gentlemen's  rea-. 
soning.  In  their  lives  death  plays  no  part. 
A  patient  who  dies  ceases  to  be  a  patient. 
And  what  does  the  day  know  of  the  night, 
though  the  one  forever  succeeds  the  other? 

But  I  know  it  is  not  I  who  forcibly  drag 
the  dead  comrade  through  my  life.  I  know 
that  the  dead  man's  life  within  me  is  stronger 
than  my  own  life.  It  may  be  that  the  shapes 
I  see  flitting  across  the  wall  papers,  cowering 
in  corners  and  staring  into  the  lighted  room 
from  dark  balconies,  and  knocking  so  hard  on 
the  windows  that  the  panes  rattle,  are  only 
visions  and  nothing  more.  Where  do  they 
come  from?  My  brain  furnishes  the  picture, 
my  eyes  provide  the  projection,  but  it  is  the 
dead  man  that  silts  at  the  crank.  He  tends  to 
the  film.  The  show  begins  when  it  suits  Him 
and  does  not  stop  as  long  as  He  turns  the 
crank.  How  can  I  help  seeing  what  He 
shows  me?  If  I  close  my  eyes  the  picture 


172  MEN  IN  WAR 

falls  upon  the  inside  of  my  lids,  and  the  drama 
plays  inside  of  me  instead  of  dancing  far  away 
over  doors  and  walls. 

I  should  be  the  stronger  of  the  two,  they 
say.  But  you  cannot  kill  a  dead  man,  the 
physicians  should  know  that. 

Are  not  the  paintings  by  Titian  and  Michael 
Angelo  still  hanging  in  the  museums  centuries 
after  Titian  and  Michael  Angelo  lived?  And 
the  pictures  that  a  dying  man  chiseled  into  my 
brain  fourteen  months  ago  with  the  prodigious 
strength  of  his  final  agony — are  they  supposed 
to  disappear  simply  because  the  man  that 
created  them  is  lying  in  his  soldier's  grave? 

Who,  when  he  reads  or  hears  the  word 
"woods,"  does  not  see  some  woods  he  has  once 
walked  through  or  looked  out  on  from  a  train 
window?  Or  when  a  man  speaks  of  his  dead 
father  does  he  not  see  the  face  that  has  long 
been  rotting  in  the  grave  appear  again,  now 
stern,  now  gentle,  now  in  the  rigidity  of  the 
last  moments?  What  would  our  whole  exist- 
ence be  without  these  visions  which,  each  at  its 


MY  COMRADE  173 

own  word,  rise  up  for  moments  out  of  oblivion 
as  if  in  the  glare  of  a  flashlight? 

Sick?  Of  course.  The  world  is  sore,  and 
will  have  no  words  or  pictures  that  do  not  have 
reference  to  the  wholesale  graves.  Not  for  a 
moment  can  the  comrade  within  me  join  the 
rest  of  the  dead,  because  everything  that  hap- 
pens is  as  a  flashlight  falling  upon  him. 
There's  the  newspaper  each  morning  to  begin 
with:  "Ships  sunk,"  "Attacks  repulsed." 
And  immediately  the  film  reels  off  a  whirl  of 
gasping,  struggling  men,  fingers  rising  out  of 
mountainous  waves  grasping  for  life  once  more, 
faces  disfigured  by  pain  and  fury.  Every  con- 
versation that  one  overhears,  every  shop  win- 
dow, every  breath  that  is  drawn  is  a  reminder 
of  the  wholesale  carnage.  Even  the  silence  of 
the  night  is  a  reminder.  Does  not  each  tick 
of  the  second-hand  mark  the  death  rattle  of 
thousands  of  men?  In  order  to  hear  the  hell 
raging  yonder  on  the  other  side  of  the  thick 
wall  of  air,  is  it  not  enough  to  know  of  chins 


174  MEN  IN  WAR 

blown  off,  throats  cut  open,  and  corpses  locked 
in  a  death  embrace? 

If  a  man  were  lying  comfortably  in  bed  and 
then  found  out  for  certain  that  some  one  next 
door  was  being  murdered,  would  you  say  he 
was  sick  if  he  jumped  up  out  of  bed  with  his 
heart  pounding?  And  are  we  anything  but 
next  door  to  the  places  where  thousands  duck 
down  in  frantic  terror,  where  the  earth  spits 
mangled  fragments  of  bodies  up  into  the  sky, 
and  the  sky  hammers  down  on  the  earth  with 
fists  of  iron?  Can  a  man  live  at  a  distance 
from  his  crucified  self  when  the  whole  world 
resounds  with  reminders  of  these  horrors? 

No! 

It  is  the  others  that  are  sick.  They  are  sick 
who  gloat  over  news  of  victories  and  see  con- 
quered miles  of  territory  rise  resplendent  above 
mounds  of  corpses.  They  are  sick  who  stretch 
a  wall  of  flags  between  themselves  and  their 
humanity  so  as  not  to  know  what  crimes  are 
being  committed  against  their  brothers  in  the 
beyond  that  they  call  "the  front."  Every  man 


MY  COMRADE  175 

is  sick  who  still  can  think,  talk,  discuss,  sleep, 
knowing  that  other  men  holding  their  own  en- 
trails in  their  hands  are  crawling  like  half- 
crushed  worms  across  the  furrows  in  the  fields 
and  before  they  reach  the  stations  for  the 
wounded  are  dying  off  like  animals,  while 
somewhere,  far  away,  a  woman  with  passionate 
longing  is  dreaming  beside  an  empty  bed.  All 
those  are  sick  who  can  fail  to  hear  the  moaning, 
the  gnashing  of  teeth,  the  howling,  the  crash- 
ing and  bursting,  the  wailing  and  cursing  and 
agonizing  in  death,  because  the  murmur  of 
everyday  affairs  is  around  them  or  the  blissful 
silence  of  night. 

It  is  the  deaf  and  the  blind  that  are  sick, 
not  I! 

It  is  the  dull  ones  that  are  sick,  those  whose 
souls  sing  neither  compassion  for  others  nor 
their  own  anger.  All  those  numerous  people 
are  sick  who,  like  a  violin  without  strings, 
merely  echo  every  sound.  Or  would  you  say 
that  the  man  whose  memory  is  like  a  photo- 
graphic plate  on  which  the  light  has  fallen  and 


176  MEN  IN  WAR 

which  cannot  record  any  more  impressions,  is 
the  healthy  man?  Is  not  memory  the  very 
highest  possession  of  every  human  being?  It 
is  the  treasure  that  animals  do  not  own,  because 
they  are  incapable  of  holding  the  past  and 
reviving  it. 

Am  I  to  be  cured  of  my  memory  as  from  an 
illness?  .Why,  without  my  memory  I  would 
not  be  myself,  because  every  man  is  built  up 
of  his  memories  and  really  lives  only  as  long 
as  he  goes  through  life  like  a  loaded  camera. 
Supposing  I  could  not  tell  where  I  lived  in  my 
childhood,  what  color  my  father's  eyes  and  my 
mother's  hair  were,  and  supposing  at  any  mo- 
ment that  I  were  called  upon  to  give  an  ac- 
count, I  could  not  turn  the  leaves  of  the  past 
and  point  to  the  right  picture,  how  quick  they 
would  be  to  diagnose  my  case  as  feeblemind- 
edness, or  imbecility.  Then,  to  be  considered 
mentally  normal,  must  one  treat  one's  brain 
like  a  slate  to  be  sponged  off  and  be  able  at 
command  to  tear  out  pictures  that  have  burned 
the  most  hideous  misery  into  the  soul,  and 


MY  COMRADE  177 

throw  them  away  as  one  does  leaves  from  an 
album  of  photographs? 

One  man  died  before  my  eyes,  he  died  hard, 
torn  asunder  after  a  frightful  struggle  be- 
tween the  two  Titans,  Life  and  Death.  Am  I 
sick,  then,  if  I  experience  all  over  again  all 
the  phases  of  his  agonizing — preserved  in  my 
brain  like  snapshots — as  long  as  every  happen- 
ing inexorably  opens  the  pages  of  this  series? 
And  the  other  people,  are  they  well,  those,  I 
mean,  who  skip  the  pages  as  though  they  were 
blank  that  record  the  dismemberment,  the  mu- 
tilation, the  crushing  of  their  brothers,  the  slow 
writhing  to  death  of  men  caught  in  barbed  wire 
entanglements? 

Tell  me,  my  dear  doctors,  at  just  what  point 
am  I  to  begin  to  forget? 

Am  I  to  forget  I  was  in  the  war?  Am  I  to 
forget  the  moment  in  the  smoky  railway  sta- 
tion when  I  leaned  out  of  the  car  window  and 
saw  my  boy  ashen  white,  with  compressed 
lips,  standing  beside  his  mother,  and  I  made  a 
poor  show  of  cheerfulness  and  talked  of  seeing 


178  MEN  IN  WAR 

them  soon  again,  while  my  eyes  greedily 
searched  the  features  of  my  wife  and  child,  and 
my  soul  drank  in  the  picture  of  them  like 
parched  lips  after  a  many  days'  march  drink- 
ing in  the  water  so  madly  longed  for?  Am  I 
to  forget  the  choking  and  the  bitterness  in  my 
mouth  when  the  train  began  to  move  and  the 
distance  swallowed  up  my  child,  my  wife,  my 
world? 

And  the  whole  ride  to  death,  when  I  was 
the  only  military  traveler  in  a  car  full  of 
happy  family  men  off  for  a  summer  Sunday 
in  the  country — am  I  to  tear  it  out  of  my 
memory  like  so  much  cumbersome  waste  pa- 
per? Am  I  to  forget  how  I  felt  when  it  grew 
quieter  at  each  station,  as  though  life  were 
crumbling  away,  bit  by  bit,  until  at  midnight 
only  one  or  two  sleepy  soldiers  remained  in  my 
coach  and  an  ashen  young  face  drawn  with 
sorrow  hovered  about  the  flickering  lamp- 
light? Must  one  actually  be  sick  if  it  is  like 
an  incurable  wound  always  to  feel  that  leave- 
taking  of  home  and  warmth,  that  riding  away 


MY  COMRADE  179 

with  hatred  and  danger  awaiting  one  at  the 
end  of  the  trip?  Is  there  anything  harder  to 
understand — when  have  men  done  anything 
madder — than  this:  to  race  through  the  night 
at  sixty  miles  an  hour,  to  run  away  from  all 
love,  all  security,  to  leave  the  train  and  take  an- 
other train  because  it  is  the  only  one  that  goes 
to  where  invisible  machines  belch  red-hot  pieces 
of  iron  and  Death  casts  out  a  finely  meshed  net 
of  steel  and  lead  to  capture  men?  Who  will 
obliterate  from  my  soul  the  picture  of  that 
small  dirty  junction,  the  shivering,  sleepy  sol- 
diers without  any  intoxication  or  music  in  their 
blood,  looking  wistfully  after  the  civilian's 
train  and  its  brightly  lighted  windows  as  it  dis- 
appeared behind  the  trees  with  a  jolly  blow  of 
its  whistle?  Who  will  obliterate  the  picture  of 
that  exchanging  for  Death  in  the  drab  light  of 
early  dawn? 

And  supposing  I  could  cross  out  that  first 
endless  night  as  something  settled  and  done 
with,  would  not  the  next  morning  remain, 
when  our  train  stopped  at  a  switch  in  the  mid- 


180  MEN  IN  WAR 

die  of  a  wide,  dewy  meadow,  and  we  were  told 
that  we  had  to  wait  to  let  hospital  trains  go 
by?  How  shall  I  ever  banish  the  memory  of 
those  thick  exhalations  of  lysol  and  blood 
blown  upon  the  happy  fields  from  a  dragon's 
nostrils?  Won't  I  forever  see  those  endless 
serpents  creeping  up  so  indolently,  as  though 
surfeited  with  mangled  human  flesh?  From 
hundreds  of  windows  white  bandages  gleamed 
and  dull,  glassy  eyes  stared  out.  Lying, 
crouching,  on  top  of  each  other,  body  to  body, 
they  even  hung  on  to  the  running-boards  like 
bloody  bunches  of  grapes,  an  overflowing 
abundance  of  distress  and  agony.  And  those 
wretched  remains  of  strength  and  youth,  those 
bruised  and  battered  men,  looked  with  pity, 
yes,  with  pity,  at  our  train.  Am  I  really  sick 
because  those  glances  of  warm  compassion 
from  bleeding  cripples  to  sound,  strapping 
young  fellows  burn  in  my  soul  with  a  fire  never 
to  be  extinguished?  An  apprehension  sent  a 
chill  through  our  whole  train,  the  foreboding 
of  a  hell  that  one  would  rather  run  away  from 


MY  COMRADE  181 

wrapped  in  bloody  bandages  than  go  to  meet 
whole  and  strong.  And  when  this  shudder 
of  apprehension  has  turned  into  reality,  into 
experience  and  memory,  is  it  to  be  shaken  off 
as  long  as  such  trains  still  meet  every  day?  A 
casual  remark  about  the  transfer  of  troops, 
news  of  fresh  battles  inevitably  recall  this  first 
actual  contact  with  the  war,  just  as  a  certain 
note  when  struck  will  produce  a  certain  tone, 
and  I  see  the  tracks  and  ties  and  stones  spat- 
tered with  blood,  shining  in  the  early  morning 
light  of  a  summer  day — signposts  pointing  to 
the  front. 

"The  Front!" 

Am  I  really  the  sick  person  because  I  cannot 
utter  that  word  or  write  it  down  without 
my  tongue  growing  coated  from  the  intense 
hatred  I  feel?  Are  not  the  others  mad  who 
look  upon  this  wholesale  cripple-and-corpse- 
factory  with  a  mixture  of  religious  devotion, 
romantic  longing  and  shy  sympathy?  Would 
it  not  be  wiser  once  for  a  change  to  examine 
those  others  for  the  state  of  their  mind?  Must 


182  MEN  IN  WAR 

I  disclose  it  to  my  wise  physicians,  who  watch 
over  me  so  compassionately,  that  all  this  mis- 
chief is  the  work  of  a  few  words  that  have 
been  let  loose  upon  humanity  like  a  pack  of 
mad  dogs? 

Front — Enemy — Hero's  death — Victory — 
the  curs  rage  through  the  world  with  frothing 
mouth  and  rolling  eyes.  Millions  who  have 
been  carefully  inoculated  against  smallpox, 
cholera  and  typhoid  fever  are  chased  into  mad- 
ness. Millions,  on  either  side,  are  packed  into 
cars — ride,  singing,  to  meet  each  other  at  the 
front — hack,  stab,  shoot  at  each  other,  blow 
each  other  into  bits,  give  their  flesh  and  their 
bones  for  the  bloody  hash  out  of  which  the  dish 
of  peace  is  to  be  cooked  for  those  fortunate  ones 
who  give  the  flesh  of  their  calves  and  oxen  to 
their  fatherland  for  a  hundred  per  cent  profit, 
instead  of  carrying  their  own  flesh  to  market 
for  fifty  cents  a  day. 

Suppose  the  word  "war"  had  never  been  in- 
vented and  had  never  been  hallowed  through 
the  ages  and  decked  with  gay  trappings.  Who 


MY  COMRADE  183 

would  dare  to  supplement  the  deficient  phrase, 
"declaration  of  war,"  by  the  following  speech? 
"After  long,  fruitless  negotiations  our  emis- 
sary to  the  government  of  X  left  to-day. 
From  the  window  of  his  parlor  car  he  raised 
his  silk  hat  to  the  gentlemen  who  had  escorted 
him  to  the  station,  and  he  will  not  meet  them 
with  a  friendly  smile  again  until  you  have  made 
corpses  of  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
in  the  country  of  X.  Up  then!  Squeeze 
yourself  into  box-cars  meant  for  six  horses  or 
twenty-eight  men!  Ride  to  meet  them,  those 
other  men.  Knock  them  dead,  hack  off  their 
heads,  live  like  wild  beasts  in  damp  excava- 
tions, in  neglect,  in  filth,  overrun  with  lice,  un- 
til we  shall  deem  the  time  has  come  again  for 
our  emissary  to  take  a  seat  in  a  parlor  car  and 
lift  his  silk  hat,  and  in  ornate  rooms  politely 
and  aristocratically  dispute  over  the  advan- 
tages which  our  big  merchants  and  manufac- 
turers are  to  derive  from  the  slaughter.  Then 
as  many  of  you  as  are  not  rotting  under  the 
ground  or  hobbling  on  crutches  and  begging 


184  MEN  IN  WAR 

from  door  to  door  may  return  to  your  half- 
starved  families,  and  may — nay  must! — take 
up  your  work  again  with  redoubled  energy, 
more  indefatigably  and  yet  with  fewer  de- 
mands than  before,  so  as  to  be  able  to  pay  in 
sweat  and  privation  for  the  shoes  that  you  wore 
out  in  hundreds  of  marches  and  the  clothes  that 
decayed  on  your  bodies." 

A  fool  he  who  would  sue  for  a  following  in 
such  terms!  But  no  fools  they  who  are  the 
victims,  who  freeze,  starve,  kill,  and  let  them- 
selves be  killed,  just  because  they  have  learned 
to  believe  that  this  must  be  so,  once  the  mad  dog 
War  has  burst  his  chains  and  bitten  the  world. 

Is  this  what  the  wars  were  like  from  which 
the  word  "war"  has  come  down  to  us?  Did 
not  war  use  to  guarantee  booty?  Were  not 
the  mercenaries  led  on  by  hopes  of  a  gay,  law- 
less life — women  and  ducats  and  gold-capari- 
soned steeds?  Is  this  cowering  under  iron  dis- 
cipline, this  holding  out  of  your  head  to  be 
chopped  off,  this  passive  play  with  monsters 
that  spill  their  hellish  cauldron  on  you  from  out 


MY  COMRADE  185 

of  the  blue  distance  still  "war"  ?  War  was  the 
collision  of  the  superfluous  forces,  the  ruffians 
of  all  nations.  Youth,  for  whom  the  town  had 
grown  too  small  and  the  doublet  too  tight,  ven- 
tured out,  intoxicated  by  the  play  of  its  own 
muscles.  And  now  shall  the  same  word  hold 
good  when  men  already  anchored  to  house  and 
home  are  torn  away  and  whipped  into  the  ranks 
and  laid  out  before  the  enemy,  and  made  to 
wait,  defenseless,  in  dull  resignation,  like 
supers  in  this  duel  of  the  munition  industries? 

Is  it  right  to  misuse  the  word  "war"  as  a 
standard  when  it  is  not  courage  and  strength 
that  count,  but  explosive  bombs  and  the  length 
of  range  of  the  guns  and  the  speed  with  which 
women  and  children  turn  out  shells?  We 
used  to  speak  with  horror  of  the  tyrants 
of  dark  ages,  who  threw  helpless  men  and 
women  to  the  lions  and  tigers ;  but  now  is  there 
one  of  us  who  would  not  mention  them  with 
respect  in  comparison  with  the  rulers  who  are 
at  present  directing  the  struggle  between  men 
and  machines,  as  though  it  were  a  puppet  show 
at  the  end  of  telegraph  wires,  and  who  are 


186  MEN  IN  WAR 

animated  by  the  delightful  hope  that  our  sup- 
ply of  human  flesh  may  outlast  the  enemy's 
supply  of  steel  and  iron? 

No!  All  words  coined  before  this  carnage 
began  are  too  beautiful  and  too  honest,  like 
the  word  "front,"  which  I  have  learned  to 
abhor.  Are  you  "facing"  the  enemy  when 
their  artillery  is  hidden  behind  mountains  and 
sends  death  over  a  distance  of  a  day's  journey, 
and  when  their  sappers  come  creeping  up 
thirty  feet  below  the  surface?  And  your 
"front"  is  a  terminal  station,  a  little  house  all 
shot  up,  behind  which  the  tracks  have  been 
torn  up  because  the  trains  turn  back  here  after 
unloading  their  cargo  of  fresh,  sunburned  men, 
to  call  for  them  again  when  they  have  emerged 
from  the  machines  with  torn  limbs  and  faces 
covered  with  verdigris. 

It  was  towards  evening  when  I  got  off  the 
train  at  this  terminal.  A  bearded  soldier  with 
his  right  arm  in  a  sling  was  sitting  on  the 
ground  leaning  against  the  iron  railing  around 
the  platform.  .When  he  saw  me  pass  by,  quite 


MY  COMRADE  187 

spick  and  span,  he  stroked  his  right  arm  ten- 
derly with  his  left  hand  and  threw  me  an  ugly 
look  of  hatred  and  called  out  through  clenched 
teeth: 

"Yes,  Lieutenant,  here's  the  place  for  man 
salad." 

Am  I  to  forget  the  wicked  grin  that  widened 
his  mouth,  already  distorted  by  pain?  Am  I 
sick  because  each  time  I  hear  the  word  "front" 
an  echo,  "man  salad,"  inevitably  croaks  in 
my  ears?  Or  are  the  others  sick  who  do  not 
hear  "man  salad,"  but  swallow  down  the 
cowardly  stuff  written  by  our  war  bards,  who 
try  like  industrious  salesmen  to  make  the  brand 
"world  war"  famous,  because  in  reward  they 
will  have  the  privilege  of  dashing  about  in 
automobiles  like  commanding  generals  instead 
of  being  forced  to  face  death  in  muddy  ditches 
and  be  bossed  by  a  little  corporal? 

Are  there  really  human  beings  of  flesh  and 
blood  who  can  still  take  a  newspaper  in  their 
hands  and  not  foam  at  the  mouth  with  rage? 
Can  one  carry  in  one's  brain  the  picture  of 


188  MEN  IN  WAR 

wounded  men  lying  exposed  on  slimy  fields  in 
the  pouring  rain,  slowly,  dumbly  bleeding  to 
death,  and  yet  quietly  read  the  vile  stuff  writ- 
ten about  "perfect  hospital  service,"  "smoothly 
running  ambulances,"  and  "elegantly  papered 
trenches,"  with  which  these  fellows  poetize 
themselves  free  from  military  service? 

Men  come  home  with  motionless,  astonished 
eyes,  still  reflecting  death.  They  walk  about 
shyly,  like  somnambulists  in  brightly  lighted 
streets.  In  their  ears  there  still  resound  the 
bestial  howls  of  fury  that  they  themselves  bel-« 
lowed  into  the  hurricane  of  the  drumfire  so  as 
to  keep  from  bursting  from  inner  stress.  They 
come  loaded  down,  like  beasts  of  burden,  with 
horrors,  the  astonished  looks  of  bayoneted, 
dying  foes  on  their  conscience — and  they  don't 
dare  open  their  mouths  because  everybody,  wife 
and  child  included,  grinds  out  the  same  tune, 
a  flow  of  curious  questions  about  shells,  gas 
bombs  and  bayonet  attacks.  So  the  days  of  the 
furlough  expire,  one  by  one,  and  the  return 
to  death  is  almost  a  deliverance  from  the  shame 


MY  COMRADE  189 

of  being  a  coward  in  disguise  among  the  friends 
at  home,  to  whom  dying  and  killing  have  be- 
come mere  commonplaces. 

So  be  it,  my  dear  doctors !  It  is  an  honor  to 
be  charged  with  madness  if  those  villains  are 
not  called  mad  who,  to  save  their  own  necks, 
have  so  gloriously  hardened  the  people's  hearts 
and  abolished  pity  and  implanted  pride  in  the 
enemy's  suffering,  instead  of  acting  as  the  one 
intermediary  between  distress  and  power  and 
arousing  the  conscience  of  the  world  by  going 
to  the  most  frequented  places  and  shouting 
"Man  Sal-ad"  through  a  megaphone  so  loud 
and  so  long  that  at  length  all  those  whose 
fathers,  husbands,  brothers,  sons,  have  gone 
to  the  corpse-factory  will  be  seized  with  terror 
and  all  the  throats  in  the  world  will  be  one  echo 
to  "Man  Sal-ad!" 

If  you  were  here  right  now,  dear  doctors,  I 
could  show  you  my  comrade,  summoned  to  this 
room  in  the  very  body  by  the  flames  of  hate 
against  news  from  the  front  and  against  the 
indifference  of  the  hinterland.  I  feel  him 


190  MEN  IN  WAR 

standing  behind  my  back,  but  his  face  is  lying 
on  the  white  sheet  in  front  of  me,  like  a  faint 
water-mark,  and  my  pen  races  frantically  so  as 
to  cover  his  eyes  at  least  with  letters  and  hide 
their  reproachful  stare. 

Large,  widening,  hideously  distorted,  his 
face,  slowly  swelling,  rises  from  the  paper  like 
the  face  of  Jesus  of  the  handkerchief. 

It  was  just  like  this  that  the  three  war  cor- 
respondents saw  him  lying  at  the  edge  of  the 
floods  on  that  midsummer  morning  and— 
turned  away  involuntarily  with  almost  the  mil- 
itary exactness  of  soldiers  at  a  "right  about 
face."  Their  visit  was  meant  for  me!  I  was 
to  furnish  them  with  carriage  and  horses  be- 
cause the  automobile  that  was  to  have  darted 
them  through  the  danger  zone  was  lying  on  the 
road  to  Goerz  with  a  broken  axle. 

Charming  gentlemen,  in  wonderfully  well- 
cut  breeches  and  traveling  caps,  looking  as  if 
they  had  stepped  out  of  a  Sherlock  Holmes 
motion  picture.  They  offered  to  carry  letters 
back  and  deliver  messages,  and  they  found 


MY  COMRADE  191 

everything  on  my  place  perfectly  fascinating, 
and  laughed  heartily  at  my  mattress  of  willow 
twigs — and  were  particularly  grateful  when 
the  carriage  stood  ready  to  carry  them  off  be- 
fore the  daily  bombardment  of  the  Italians 
began. 

On  driving  out  of  the  woods  they  had  to 
pass  the  wounded  man  again  with  the  hideously 
disfigured  face.  He  was  crouching  on  the 
meadow.  But  this  time  they  did  not  see  him. 
As  if  at  command  they  turned  their  heads  the 
other  way  and  with  animated  gestures  viewed 
the  damage  done  by  an  air  raid  the  day  before, 
as  though  they  were  already  sitting  over  a  table 
in  a  coffee-house. 

I  lost  my  breath,  as  though  I  had  run  a  long 
distance  up-hill.  The  place  where  I  stood  sud- 
denly seemed  strange  and  altered.  Was  that 
the  same  piece  of  woods  into  which  shells  had 
so  often  come  crashing,  which  the  huge  Cap- 
roni  planes  had  circled  about  with  wide-spread 
wings  like  vultures,  shedding  bombs,  while  our 
machine  guns  lashed  the  leaves  with  a  hail- 


192  MEN  IN  WAR 

storm  of  shot?  Was  it  out  of  this  piece  of 
woods  that  three  men  had  just  driven  off, 
healthy,  unscathed,  gaily  waving  their  caps? 
Where  was  the  wall  that  held  us  others  im- 
prisoned under  the  cracking  branches?  Was 
there  not  a  door  that  opened  only  to  let  out 
pale,  sunken  cheeks,  feverish  eyes,  or  mangled 
limbs? 

The  carriage  rolled  lightly  over  the  field, 
trampled  down  brown,  and  the  one  thing  miss- 
ing to  make  it  the  perfect  picture  of  a  pleasure 
trip  was  the  brilliant  red  of  a  Baedeker. 

Those  men  were  riding  back  home. 

To  wife  and  child,  perhaps? 

A  painful  pulling  and  tugging,  as  though 
my  eyes  were  caught  to  the  carriage  wheels. 
Then  my  body  rebounded — as  if  torn  off — 
back  into  emptiness,  and — at  that  moment,  just 
when  my  soul  was  as  if  ploughed  up  by  the  car- 
riage and  laid  bare  and  defenseless  by  yearn- 
ing— at  that  moment  the  experience  sprang 
upon  me — with  one  dreadful  leap,  one  single 
bite — incurable  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 


MY  COMRADE  193 

Unsuspecting,  I  crossed  over  to  the  wounded 
man  upon  whom  the  three  had  so  unceremo- 
niously turned  their  backs,  as  though  he  did  not 
also  belong  to  the  interesting  museum  of  shell 
holes  that  they  had  come  to  inspect.  He  was 
cowering  near  the  dirty  ragged  little  Red  Cross 
flag,  with  his  head  between  his  knees,  and  did 
not  hear  me  come  up.  Behind  him  lay  the 
brown  spot  which  stood  out  from  the  green 
still  left  on  the  field  like  a  circus  ring.  The 
wounded  soldiers  who  gathered  here  every 
morning  at  dawn  to  be  driven  to  the  field  hos- 
pital in  the  wagons  that  brought  us  ammuni- 
tion had  rubbed  this  spot  in  like  a  favorite  cor- 
ner of  a  sofa. 

How  many  I  had  seen  crouching  there  like 
that,  for  ten — often  twelve  hours,  when  the 
wagons  had  left  too  early,  or  had  been  over- 
crowded, or,  after  violent  fighting,  had  stood 
waiting  in  line  at  the  munitions  depot  behind 
the  lines.  Happy  fellows,  some  of  them,  with 
broken  arms  or  legs,  the  war  slang,  "a  thou- 
sand-dollar shot,"  on  their  pale,  yet  laughing 


194  MEN  IN  WAR 

lips — enviously  ogled  by  the  men  with  slight 
wounds  or  the  men  sick  with  typhoid  fever, 
who  would  all  gladly  have  sacrificed  a  thousand 
dollars  and  a  limb  into  the  bargain  for  the  same 
certainty  of  not  having  to  return  to  the  front 
again.  How  many  I  had  seen  rolling  on  the 
ground,  biting  into  the  earth  in  their  agony — 
how  many  in  the  pouring  rain,  half  buried  al- 
ready in  the  mud,  their  bodies  ripped  open, 
groaning  and  whimpering  and  outbellowing 
the  storm. 

This  man  seemed  to  be  only  slightly  hurt  in 
the  right  leg.  The  blood  had  oozed  out  on 
one  spot  through  the  hastily  made  bandage,  so 
I  offered  him  my  first-aid  package,  besides 
cognac  and  cigarettes.  But  he  did  not  move. 
It  was  not  until  I  laid  my  hand  on  his  shoul- 
der that  he  raised  his  head — and  the  face  he 
showed  me  threw  me  back  like  a  blow  on  the 
chest. 

His  mouth  and  nose  had  come  apart,  and 
crept  like  a  thick  vine  up  his  right  cheek— 
which  was  no  longer  a  cheek.  A  chunk  of 


MY  COMRADE  195 

bluish  red  flesh  swelled  up  there,  covered  by 
skin  stretched  to  bursting  and  shining  from 
being  drawn  so  tight.  The  whole  right  side  of 
his  face  seemed  more  like  an  exotic  fruit  than 
a  human  countenance,  while  from  the  left  side, 
from  out  of  grey  twitching  misery,  a  sad, 
frightened  eye  looked  up  at  me. 

Violent  terror  slung  itself  round  my  neck 
like  a  lasso. 

What  was  it?  Such  a  frightful  thing  as  that 
even  this  field,  this  waiting-room  to  the  Be- 
yond, had  never  witnessed  before.  Even  the 
awful  recollection  of  another  wounded  man 
who  had  stood  at  this  same  spot  a  few  days 
before,  his  hands  looking  as  though  they  were 
modeling  something,  while  in  actuality  they 
were  carefully  holding  his  own  entrails — even 
that  hideous  recollection  faded  before  the  sight 
of  this  Janus  head,  all  peace,  all  gentle  human- 
ity on  one  side;  all  war,  all  distorted,  puifed- 
up  image  of  fiendish  hatred  on  the  other  side. 

"Shrapnel?"  I  stammered  timidly. 

The  answer  was  confused.     All  I  could  get 


196  MEN  IN  WAR 

out  of  it  was  that  a  dumdum  bullet  had  smashed 
his  right  shinbone.  But  what  was  that  he  kept 
mumbling  about  a  hook  each  time  his  hand 
trembled  up  to  his  glowing  cheek? 

I  could  not  understand  him;  for  the  thing 
he  had  gone  through  still  seethed  in  his  veins 
so  violently  that  he  spoke  as  though  it  were 
just  then  happening  and  I  were  witnessing  it. 
His  peasant's  mind  could  not  comprehend  that 
there  were  people  who  had  not  seen  or  heard 
of  the  tremendous  misery  of  the  last  hours  he 
had  gone  through.  So  it  was  more  by  guess- 
work that  I  gradually  pieced  together  his  story 
from  unfinished  sentences,  coarse  oaths,  and 
groans. 

For  a  whole  night,  after  a  repulsed  attack 
on  the  enemy's  trench,  he  had  lain  with  a 
broken  leg,  unconscious,  near  our  own  wire 
entanglements.  At  dawn  they  threw  out  the 
iron  grappling  hook  for  him,  with  which  they 
pull  over  into  the  trench  the  corpses  of  friend 
and  foe  so  as  to  be  able  to  bury  them  uncere- 
moniously before  the  sun  of  Goerz  has  a  chance 


MY  COMRADE  197 

to  do  its  work.  With  this  hook,  dipped  in 
hundreds  of  corpses,  a  dunce — "God  damn 
him!" — had  torn  his  cheek  open  before  a  more 
skilful  hand  caught  hold  of  it  and  got  him 
over  safely.  And  now  he  asked  humbly  to  be 
taken  away  to  the  hospital  quickly,  because 
he  was  worried — about  his  leg  and  being  a  crip- 
pled beggar  the  rest  of  his  life. 

I  ran  off  as  though  mad  dogs  were  at  my 
heels,  over  rocks  and  roots,  through  the  woods 
to  the  next  detachment.  In  vain!  In  the 
whole  woods  there  was  not  a  single  vehicle  to 
be  found.  I  had  given  up  the  last  one  to  those 
three  war  correspondents. 

Why  had  I  not  asked  them  to  take  the  one 
wounded  man  lying  on  the  field  along  with 
them  and  leave  him  at  the  hospital  that  they 
would  pass?  Why  had  they  themselves  not 
thought  of  doing  their  human  duty?  Why? 

I  clenched  my  fists  in  impotent  fury  and 
caught  myself  reaching  for  my  revolver  as 
though  I  could  still  shoot  those  gay  sparks  in 
their  carriage. 


198  MEN  IN  WAR 

Breathless,  overheated  from  the  long  race,  I 
tottered  back,  my  knees  trembling  the  whole 
way.  I  felt  utterly  broken,  as  though  I  were 
carrying  on  my  shoulders  a  picture,  weighing 
a  ton,  of  men  who  for  sport  angle  for  human 
carrion. 

An  odd  choking  and  tickling  came  into  my 
throat — a  sensation  I  had  not  known  since 
childhood — when,  back  at  my  post  again,  I 
had  to  listen  to  the  low  whimpering  of  the  help- 
less man. 

He  was  no  longer  alone.  In  my  absence  a 
little  band  of  slightly  wounded  men  had  joined 
him.  Peering  between  the  tree  trunks  I  saw 
them  sitting  in  a  circle  on  the  field,  while  the 
man  who  had  been  hooked  was  hopping  about 
holding  on  to  his  injured  leg  and  tossing  his 
head  from  one  shoulder  to  the  other. 

Towards  noon  I  sent  my  corporals  in  search 
of  a  vehicle,  promising  them  a  princely  reward, 
while  I  ran  to  the  field  again  with  my  whisky 
flask. 

He  was  no  longer  dancing  about.     He  was 


MY  COMRADE  199 

kneeling  in  the  center  of  the  circle  of  wounded 
men,  his  body  bent  over,  rolling  his  head  on 
the  ground  as  though  it  were  a  thing  apart 
from  himself.  Suddenly  he  jumped  up  with 
such  a  yell  of  fury  that  a  frightened  murmur 
came  even  from  the  line  of  wounded  men,  who 
had  been  sitting  there  indifferent,  sunk  in 
their  own  suffering. 

That  was  no  longer  anything  human.  The 
man's  skin  could  not  stand  any  more  stretch- 
ing and  had  burst.  The  broad  splits  ran  apart 
like  the  lines  of  a  compass  and  in  the  middle 
the  raw  flesh  glowed  and  gushed  out. 

And  he  yelled !  He  hammered  with  his  fist 
on  the  enormous  purplish  lump,  until  he  fell 
to  his  knees  again  moaning  under  the  blows  of 
his  own  hand. 

It  was  dark  already  when — at  last! — they 
came  and  carted  him  away.  And  when  the 
night  slowly  wove  its  web  of  mist  in  the  woods 
and  I  lay  wrapped  in  a  mound  of  blankets, 
the  only  one  who  was  still  awake  in  the  throng 
of  black  tree-trunks  that  moved  closer  together 


200  MEN  IN  WAR 

in  the  darkness — there  he  was  back  again, 
standing  up  stiff  in  the  moonlight,  his  tortured 
cheek,  huge  as  a  pumpkin,  shining  blue  against 
the  black  shadows  of  the  trees.  It  glimmered 
like  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  now  here,  now  there. 
Night  after  night.  It  shone  into  every  dream, 
so  that  I  forced  my  eyelids  open  with  my  fin- 
gers— until,  after  ten  frightful  nights,  my 
body  broke  down  and  was  carried,  a  shrieking, 
convulsed  heap,  to  the  same  hospital  in  which 
He  had  succumbed  to  blood-poisoning. 

And  now  I  am  a  madman!  You  can  read 
it,  black  on  white,  on  the  placard  at  the  head 
of  my  bed.  They  pat  me  on  the  back  sooth- 
ingly, like  a  shying  horse,  when  I  flare  up  and 
ask  to  be  let  out  of  this  place  in  which  the 
others  should  be  shut  up. 

But  the  others  are  free !  From  my  window 
I  can  look  over  the  garden  wall  into  the  street, 
and  see  them  hurrying  along,  raising  their  hats, 
shaking  hands,  and  crowding  in  front  of  the 
latest  bulletin.  I  see  women  and  girls, 
dressed  coquettishly,  tripping  along  with  pride 


MY  COMRADE  201 

shining  in  their  eyes,  beside  men  whom  a  cross 
on  the  breast  brands  as  murderers.  I  see 
widows  in  long  black  veils — still  patient.  I 
see  lads  with  flowers  stuck  in  their  helmets 
ready  to  leave  for  the  war.  And  not  one  of 
them  rebels!  Not  one  of  them  sees  bruised, 
mangled  men  cowering  in  dark  corners,  men 
ripped  apart  by  grappling  hooks,  men  with 
their  entrails  gushing  out,  and  men  with  blue 
shining  cheeks. 

They  go  by  under  my  window,  gesticulat- 
ing, enthusiastic;  because  the  enthusiastic 
phrases  arrive  coined  fresh  every  day  from  the 
mint,  and  each  person  feels  sheltered  and  en- 
veloped in  a  warmth  of  assent  if  the  phrases 
ring  clear  from  his  lips.  I  know  that  they 
keep  quiet  even  when  they  would  like  to  speak, 
to  cry  out,  to  scream.  I  know  that  they  hunt 
down  "slackers,"  and  have  no  word  of  abuse 
for  those  who  are  a  thousand  times  worse 
cowards,  those  who  clearly  recognise  the  utter 
senselessness  of  this  butchery  of  millions,  yet 


202  MEN  IN  WAR 

will  not  open  their  mouths  for  fear  of  the  cen- 
sure of  the  thoughtless  crowd. 

From  my  window  I  can  see  the  whole  globe 
spinning  round  like  a  crazy  whirligig,  whipped 
on  by  haughty  lords  in  cunning  calculation  and 
by  venal  servants  in  sneaking  submissiveness. 

I  see  the  whole  pack !  The  bawlers  who  are 
too  empty  and  too  lazy  to  develop  their  own 
selves  and  want  to  puff  themselves  with  the 
glittering  praise  meant  for  their  herd.  The 
scoundrels  who  are  protected  by  the  masses, 
carried  by  them  and  fed  by  them,  and  who  look 
up  sanctimoniously  to  a  bogy  of  their  own  in- 
vention, and  hammer  that  bogy  into  the  con- 
science of  millions  of  good  men,  until  the  mass 
has  been  forged  that  has  neither  heart  nor 
brain,  but  only  fury  and  blind  faith.  I  see 
the  whole  game  proceeding  madly  in  blood  and 
agony.  I  see  the  spectators  going  by  indif- 
ferently, and  I  am  called  a  madman  when  I 
raise  the  window  to  call  down  to  them  that  the 
sons  they  have  born  and  bred,  the  men  they 


MY  COMRADE  203 

have  loved  are  being  chased  like  wild  animals, 
are  being  butchered  like  cattle. 

Those  fools  down  there,  who  for  the  sake  of 
respectable  condolence  calls,  for  a  neighbor's 
eyes  raised  heavenward  in  sympathy,  sacrificed 
the  splendor  and  warmth  of  their  lives,  who 
threw  their  flesh  and  blood  into  the  barbed  wire 
entanglements,  to  rot  as  carrion  on  the  fields 
or  be  hooked  in  with  grappling  hooks,  who 
have  no  other  consolation  than  that  the 
"enemy"  have  had  the  same  done  to  them — 
those  fools  remain  free ;  and  in  their  despicable 
vanity  and  wicked  patience  they  may  daily 
shove  fresh  hecatombs  out  to  the  cannons.  But 
I  must  stay  here  impotent — left  alone  with  the 
relentless  comrade  that  my  conscience  gives 
birth  to  over  again  every  day. 

I  stand  at  my  window  and  between  me  and 
the  street  lie  piled  high  the  bodies  of  the  many 
I  saw  bleeding.  And  I  stand  here  powerless 
—because  the  revolver  that  was  given  me  to 
shoot  down  poor  homesick  devils,  forced  into  a 
uniform  by  iron  necessity,  has  been  taken  from 


204  MEN  IN  WAR 

me,  out  of  fear  that  I  might  dislodge  a  few 
mass  murderers  from  their  security  and  send 
them  as  a  warning  example  down  to  their 
victims. 

So  I  must  stay  here,  as  a  seer  over  the  blind 
— behind  iron  gratings.  And  all  I  can  do  is 
consign  these  leaves  to  the  wind — every  day 
write  it  all  down  again  and  keep  scattering  the 
pages  out  on  the  street. 

I  will  write  indefatigably.  I  will  sow  the 
whole  world  with  my  pages.  Until  the  seed 
shall  sprout  in  every  heart,  until  every  bed- 
room will  be  entered  by  a  blue  apparition — a 
dear  dead  one  showing  This  wounds;  and  at  last, 
at  last,  the  glorious  song  of  the  world's  re- 
demption will  resound  under  my  window,  the 
wrathful  cry  shouted  by  a  million  throats: 

"Man  Sal-ad!" 


A  HERO'S  DEATH 


V 
A  HERO'S  DEATH 

r  I  ^HE  staiF  physician  had  not  understood. 
•••  He  shook  his  head,  vexed,  and  looked 
questioningly  over  the  rims  of  his  glasses  at 
his  assistant. 

But  his  assistant  had  not  understood  either, 
and  was  embarrassed,  and  stood  stiffly  with- 
out saying  anything. 

The  only  one  who  seemed  to  have  any  clue 
at  all  to  the  man's  ravings  was  his  orderly. 
For  two  tears  glistened  on  the  upturned  ends 
of  his  waxed  mustache.  But  the  orderly  spoke 
nothing  but  Hungarian,  and  the  staff  physician 
turned  away  with  a  muttered  "blooming  idiot." 
Followed  by  his  flaxen-haired  assistant,  he 
made  his  way  toward  the  operating  room, 
panting  and  perspiring. 

The  huge  ball  of  cotton,  inside  of  which,  ac- 

207 


208  MEN  IN  WAR 

cording  to  the  placard  hanging  at  the  top  of 
the  bed,  was  hidden  the  head  of  First  Lieu- 
tenant of  the  Reserves,  Otto  Kadar,  of  the 

th  Regiment  of  Field  Artillery,  sank  back 

on  the  pillow,  and  Miska  seated  himself  again 
on  his  knapsack,  snuffed  up  his  tears,  put  his 
head  between  his  big  unwashed  hands,  and 
speculated  despairingly  about  his  future. 

For  it  was  plain  that  his  Lieutenant  could 
not  last  much  longer.  Miska  knew  what  was 
hidden  in  the  huge  cotton  ball.  He  had  seen 
the  crushed  skull  and  the  horrible  grey  mess 
under  the  bloody  splinters  which  were  the 
brains  of  his  poor  Lieutenant,  who  had  been 
such  a  good  man  and  kind  superior.  Miska 
could  not  hope  for  such  wonderful  luck  a 
second  time.  You  didn't  come  across  such  a 
kind-hearted  master  twice  in  your  life.  The 
many,  many  slices  of  salami  that  the  Lieuten- 
ant always  had  given  him  from  his  own  store 
of  provisions,  the  gentle,  cordial  words  that 
Miska  had  heard  him  whisper  to  every 
wounded  man — all  the  memories  of  the  long, 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  209 

bloody  months  he  had  gone  through  dully  be- 
side his  master  almost  like  a  comrade,  rose  to 
his  mind.  He  felt  dreadfully  sorry  for  him- 
self, the  good  fellow  did,  in  his  infinite  defense- 
lessness  against  the  huge  war  machine  into 
which  he  would  now  be  thrown  again  without 
the  sure  support  of  his  kind  Lieutenant  next 
to  him. 

His  broad  peasant's  head  between  his  hands, 
he  crouched  like  a  dog  at  the  feet  of  his  dying 
master,  and  the  tears  rolled  gently  down  his 
cheeks  and  stuck  one  by  one  on  the  ends  of  his 
mustache  glued  with  dust  and  pomade. 

It  was  not  quite  clear  to  Miska  either  just 
why  the  poor  Lieutenant  kept  clamoring  so 
frightfully  for  his  talking-machine.  All  he 
knew  was  that  the  officers  had  been  sitting 
under  cover,  listening  to  the  Rakoczy  March 
on  the  phonograph,  when  suddenly  that  ac- 
cursed shell  burst  upon  them  and  everything 
disappeared  in  smoke  and  earth.  He  himself 
had  been  knocked  unconscious  by  a  heavy  board 
which  came  out  of  a  clear  sky  and  hit  him  on 


210  MEN  IN  WAR 

the  back.  He  had  fallen  flat  and  it  was  an 
eternity  before  he  got  his  breath  back  again. 

Then — then — Miska's  recollections  of  things 
after  this  were  a  bit  hazy — then  he  remembered 
an  indescribable  heap  of  splintered  boards  and 
fallen  beams,  a  hash  of  rags,  cement,  earth, 
human  limbs,  and  quantities  of  blood.  And 
then — then  he  remembered — young  Meltzar. 
Meltzar  was  still  sitting  upright  with  his  back 
against  the  remains  of  the  wall,  and  the  record 
that  had  just  played  the  Rakoczy  March  and 
had  miraculously  remained  whole  was  perched 
on  the  place  where  his  head  belonged.  But 
his  head  was  not  there.  It  was  gone — com- 
pletely gone,  while  the  black  record  remained, 
also  leaning  against  the  wall,  directly  on  top 
of  the  bloodsoaked  collar.  It  was  awful. 
Not  one  of  the  soldiers  had  dared  touch  the 
upright  body  with  the  record  exactly  like  a 
head  on  its  neck. 

Brrr!  A  cold  shiver  ran  down  Miska's 
back  at  the  recollection,  and  his  heart  stopped 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  211 

beating  in  fright  when  just  at  that  moment  the 
Lieutenant  again  began  to  scream: 

"Phonograph!     Only  a  phonograph!" 

Miska  jumped  up  and  saw  the  huge  ball  of 
cotton  lift  itself  with  an  effort  from  the  pil- 
low, and  his  officer's  one  remaining  eye  fix 
greedily  upon  some  invisible  object.  He  stood 
there  ashamed,  as  though  guilty  of  a  crime, 
when  indignant  glances  were  darted  at  him 
from  the  other  beds  in  the  ward. 

"This  is  unbearable!"  cried  a  Major,  who 
had  been  severely  wounded,  from  the  other  end 
of  the  long  ward.  "Carry  the  man  out." 

But  the  Major  spoke  German,  and  Miska 
was  more  than  ever  at  sea.  He  wiped  the 
sweat  of  anguish  from  his  brow  and  explained 
to  a  lieutenant  in  the  next  bed,  since  his  mas- 
ter could  not  hear  what  he  said  anyhow,  that 
the  phonograph  had  been  broken — broken  into 
a  thousand  pieces,  else  he  would  never  have  left 
it  there,  but  would  surely  have  brought  it  along 
as  he  had  brought  everything  else  belonging 
to  his  Lieutenant  that  he  had  managed  to  find. 


212  MEN  IN  WAR 

No  one  answered  him.  As  at  a  word  of 
command,  each  one  of  the  officers  the  whole 
length  of  the  ward  stuck  his  head  under  his 
pillow  and  pulled  the  covers  over  his  ears  so  as 
not  to  hear  that  horrible  gurgling  laugh  which 
changed  into  a  howl  or  into  infuriated  cries 
for  the  phonograph.  The  old  Major  even 
wrapped  his  blood-stained  cloak  around  his 
head  like  a  turban. 

"Lieutenant!  I  beg  pardon,  Lieutenant 

"  Miska  begged,  and  very,  very  gently 

stroked  his  master's  quivering  knees  with  his 
big  hard  palms. 

But  Lieutenant  Kadar  heard  him  not. 
Neither  did  he  feel  the  heavy  hand  resting  on 
his  knees.  For,  opposite  him,  young  Meltzar 
was  still  sitting  with  a  flat,  black,  round  head 
on  his  neck  on  which  the  Rakoczy  March  was 
mgraved  in  spirals.  And  all  at  once  the  officer 
realized  that  for  the  past  six  months  he  had 
done  poor  Meltzar  a  grievous  injustice.  How 
could  the  poor  fellow  help  his  stupidity,  how 
could  he  help  his  silly,  high-flown  patriotic 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  213 

talk?  How  could  he  possibly  have  had  sen- 
sible ideas  with  a  record  for  a  head?  Poor 
Meltzar  1 

Lieutenant  Kadar  simply  could  not  under- 
stand why  it  was  that  six  months  before,  right 
away,  when  young  Meltzar  announced  his  en- 
trance into  the  battery,  he  had  not  guessed 
what  they  had  done  to  the  boy  in  the  hinter- 
land. -;!|J3 

They  had  given  him  a  different  head.  They 
had  unscrewed  the  handsome  fair  young  head 
of  a  lad  of  eighteen  and  in  its  place  put  a  black, 
scratched-up  disc,  which  could  do  nothing  but 
squeak  the  Rakoczy  March.  That  had  now 
been  proved  I  How  the  boy  must  have  suf- 
fered whenever  his  superior  officer,  his  senior 
by  twenty  years,  inflicted  long  sermons  on  him 
about  humanity!  With  the  flat,  round  disc 
that  they  had  put  on  him  he  of  course  could 
not  comprehend  that  the  Italian  soldiers  be- 
ing led  past  the  battery,  reeking  with  blood 
and  in  rags,  would  also  much  rather  have 
stayed  at  home,  if  a  bulletin  on  the  street  corner 


214  MEN  IN  WAR 

had  not  forced  them  to  leave  their  homes  imme- 
diately, just  as  the  mobilization  in  Hungary 
had  forced  the  Hungarian  gunners  to  leave 
their  homes. 

Now  for  the  first  time  Lieutenant  Kadar 
comprehended  the  young  man's  unbending  re- 
sistance to  him.  Now  at  last  he  realized  why 
this  boy,  who  could  have  been  his  son,  had  so 
completely  ignored  his  wisest,  kindest  admoni- 
tions and  explanations,  and  had  always  re- 
sponded by  whistling  the  Rakoczy  March 
through  clenched  teeth  and  hissing  the  stereo- 
typed fulmination,  "The  dogs  ought  to  be  shot 
to  pieces." 

So  then  it  was  not  because  of  his  being  young 
and  stupid  that  Meltzar  had  behaved  as  he  did ; 
not  because  he  had  come  direct  from  the  mili- 
tary academy  to  the  trenches.  The  phono- 
graph record  was  to  blame,  the  phonograph 
record! 

Lieutenant  Kadar  felt  his  veins  swell  up  like 
ropes  and  his  blood  pound  on  his  temples  like 
blows  on  an  anvil,  so  great  was  his  wrath 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  215 

against  the  wrongdoers  who  had  treacherously 
unscrewed  poor  Meltzar's  lovely  young  head 
from  his  body. 

And — this  was  the  most  gruesome — as  he 
now  thought  of  his  subordinates  and  fellow- 
officers,  he  saw  them  all  going  about  exactly 
like  poor  Meltzar,  without  heads  on  their 
bodies.  He  shut  his  eyes  and  tried  to  recall 
the  looks  of  his  gunners — in  vain!  Not  a  sin- 
gle face  rose  before  his  mind's  eye.  He  had 
spent  months  and  months  among  those  men 
and  had  not  discovered  until  that  moment  that 
not  one  of  them  had  a  head  on  his  shoulders. 
Otherwise  he  would  surely  have  remembered 
whether  his  gunner  had  a  mustache  or  not  and 
whether  the  artillery  captain  was  light  or  dark. 
No !  Nothing  stuck  in  his  mind — nothing  but 
phonograph  records,  hideous,  black,  round 
plates  lying  on  bloody  blouses. 

The  whole  region  of  the  Isonzo  suddenly  lay 
spread  out  way  below  him  like  a  huge  map 
such  as  he  had  often  seen  in  illustrated  papers. 
The  silver  ribbon  of  the  river  wound  in  and  out 


216  MEN  IN  WAR 

among  hills  and  coppices,  and  Lieutenant 
Kadar  soared  high  above  the  welter  down  be- 
low without  motor  or  aeroplane,  but  borne 
along  merely  by  his  own  outspread  arms. 
And  everywhere  he  looked,  on  every  hill  and 
in  every  hollow,  he  saw  the  horns  of  innumer- 
able talking-machines  growing  out  of  the 
ground.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  those 
familiar  cornucopias  of  bright  lacquer  with 
gilt  edges  pointed  their  open  mouths  up  at 
him.  And  each  one  was  the  center  of  a 
swarming  ant-hill  of  busy  gunners  carrying 
shot  and  shell. 

And  now  Lieutenant  Kadar  saw  it  very  dis- 
tinctly: all  the  men  had  records  on  their  necks 
like  young  Meltzar.  Not  a  single  one  carried 
his  own  head.  But  when  the  shells  burst  with 
a  howl  from  the  lacquered  horns  and  flew 
straight  into  an  ant-hill,  then  the  flat,  black 
discs  broke  apart  and  at  the  very  same  instant 
changed  back  into  real  heads.  From  his  height 
Lieutenant  Kadar  saw  the  brains  gush  out  of 
the  shattered  discs  and  the  evenly-marked  sur- 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  217 

faces  turn  on  the  second  into  ashen,  agonized 
human  countenances. 

Everything  seemed  to  be  revealed  now  in 
one  stroke  to  the  dying  lieutenant — all  the 
secrets  of  the  war,  all  the  problems  he  had 
brooded  over  for  many  months  past.  So  he 
had  the  key  to  the  riddle.  These  people  evi- 
dently did  not  get  their  heads  back  until  they 
were  about  to  die.  Somewhere — somewhere — 
far  back — far  back  of  the  lines,  their  heads  had 
been  unscrewed  and  replaced  by  records  that 
could  do  nothing  but  play  the  Rakoczy  March. 
Prepared  in  this  fashion,  they  had  been 
jammed  into  the  trains  and  sent  to  the  front, 
like  poor  Meltzar,  like  himself,  like  all  of 
them. 

In  a  fury  of  anger,  the  ball  of  cotton  tossed 
itself  up  again  with  a  jerk.  Lieutenant 
Kadar  wanted  to  jump  out  of  bed  and  reveal 
the  secret  to  his  men,  and  urge  them  to 
insist  upon  having  their  heads  back  again.  He 
wanted  to  whisper  the  secret  to  each  individual 
along  the  entire  front,  from  Plava  all  the  way 


218  MEN  IN  WAR 

down  to  the  sea.  He  wanted  to  tell  it  to  each 
gunner,  each  soldier  in  the  infantry  and  even 
to  the  Italians  over  there!  He  even  wanted 
to  tell  it  to  the  Italians.  The  Italians,  too, 
had  had  records  screwed  on  to  their  necks. 
And  they  should  go  back  home,  too,  back  to 
Verona,  to  Venice,  to  Naples,  where  their 
heads  lay  piled  up  in  the  store-houses  for  safe- 
keeping until  the  war  was  over.  Lieutenant 
Kadar  wanted  to  run  from  one  man  to  an- 
other, so  as  to  help  each  individual  to  recover 
his  head,  whether  friend  or  foe. 

But  all  at  once  he  noticed  he  could  not  walk. 
And  he  wasn't  soaring  any  more  either. 
Heavy  iron  weights  clamped  his  feet  down  to 
the  bed  to  keep  him  from  revealing  the  great 
secret. 

Well,  then,  he  would  shout  it  out  in  a  roar, 
in  a  voice  supernaturally  loud  that  would 
sound  above  the  bursting  of  the  shells  and  the, 
blare  of  trumpets  on  the  Day  of  Judgment, 
and  proclaim  the  truth  from  Plava  to  Trieste, 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  219 

even  into  the  Tyrol.  He  would  shout  as  no 
man  had  ever  shouted  before: 

"Phonograph! — Bring  the  heads! — Phono- 
graph I " 

Here  his  voice  suddenly  broke  with  a  gur- 
gling sound  of  agony  right  in  the  midst  of  his 
message  of  salvation.  It  hurt  too  much.  He 
could  not  shout.  He  felt  as  though  at  each 
word  a  sharp  needle  went  deep  into  his  brain. 

A  needle? 

Of  course!  How  could  he  have  forgotten 
it?  His  head  had  been  screwed  off,  too.  He 
wore  a  record  on  his  neck,  too,  like  all  the 
others.  When  he  tried  to  say  something,  the 
needle  stuck  itself  into  his  skull  and  ran  mer- 
cilessly along  all  the  coils  of  his  brain. 

No!  He  could  not  bear  it!  He'd  rather 
keep  quiet — keep  the  secret  to  himself.  Only 
not  to  feel  that  pain — that  maddening  pain  in 
his  head! 

But  the  machine  ran  on.  Lieutenant  Kadar 
grabbed  his  head  with  both  hands  and  dug  his 
nails  deep  into  his  temples.  If  he  didn't  stop 


220  MEN  IN  WAR 

that  thing  in  time  from  going  round  and 
round,  then  his  revolving  head  would  certainly 
break  his  neck  in  a  few  seconds. 

Icy  drops  of  anguish  flowed  from  all  his 
pores. 

"Miska!"  he  yelled  in  the  extreme  of  his  dis- 
tress. 

But  Miska  did  not  know  what  to  do. 

The  record  kept  on  revolving  and  joyously 
thrummed  the  Rakoczy  March.  All  the  sinews 
in  the  Lieutenant's  body  grew  tense.  Again 
and  again  he  felt  his  head  slip  from  between 
his  hands — his  spine  was  already  rising  before 
his  eyes!  With  a  last,  frantic  effort  he 
tried  once  more  to  get  his  hands  inside  the 
bandages  and  press  his  head  forward.  Then 
one  more  dreadful  gnashing  of  his  teeth  and 
one  more  horrible  groan  and — the  long  ward 
was  at  length  as  silent  as  an  empty  church. 

When  the  flaxen-haired  assistant  returned 
from  the  operating-room  Miska's  whining  in- 
formed him  from  afar  that  another  cot  in  the 
officers'  division  was  now  vacant.  The  im- 


A  HERO'S  DEATH  221 

patient  old  Major  quite  needlessly  beckoned 
him  to  his  side  and  announced  in  a  loud  voice 
so  that  all  the  gentlemen  could  hear : 

"The  poor  devil  there  has  at  last  come  to  the 
end  of  his  sufferings."  Then  he  added  in  a 
voice  vibrating  with  respect:  "He  died  like  a 
true  Hungarian  —  singing  the  Rakoczy 
March." 


HOME  AGAIN 


VI 
HOME  AGAIN 

AT  last  the  lake  gleamed  through  the 
leaves,  and  the  familiar  grey  chalk  moun- 
tains emerged  into  view,  reaching  out  across 
the  railroad  embankment  as  with  threatening 
fingers  deep  down  into  the  water.  There,  be- 
yond the  smoky  black  opening  of  the  short 
tunnel,  the  church  steeple  and  a  corner  of  the 
castle  peeped  for  an  instant  above  the  grove. 

John  Bogdan  leaned  way  out  of  the  train 
window  and  looked  at  everything  with  greedy 
eyes,  like  a  man  going  over  the  inventory  of 
his  possessions,  all  tense  and  distrustful,  for 
fear  something  may  have  been  lost  in  his  ab- 
sence. As  each  group  of  trees  for  which  he 
waited  darted  by,  he  gave  a  satisfied  nod,  meas- 
uring the  correctness  of  the  landscape  by  the 
picture  of  it  that  he  carried  fairly  seared  in  his 

225 


226  MEN  IN  WAR 

memory.  Everything  agreed.  Every  mile- 
stone on  the  highroad,  now  running  parallel 
to  the  railroad  tracks,  stood  on  the  right  spot. 
There!  The  flash  of  the  flaming  red  copper 
beech,  at  which  the  horses  always  shied  and 
once  came  within  an  ace  of  upsetting  the  car- 
riage. 

John  Bogdan  drew  a  deep,  heavy  sigh,  fished 
a  small  mirror  out  of  his  pocket,  and  gave  his 
face  a  final  scrutiny  before  leaving  the  train. 
At  each  station  his  face  seemed  to  grow  uglier. 
The  right  side  was  not  so  bad.  A  bit  of  his 
mustache  still  remained,  and  his  right  cheek 
was  fairly  smooth  except  for  the  gash  at  the 
corner  of  his  mouth,  which  had  not  healed 
properly.  But  the  left  side !  He  had  let  those 
damned  city  folk  tell  him  a  whole  lot  of  non- 
sense about  the  left  side  of  his  face.  A  bunch 
of  damned  scoundrels  they  were,  bent  upon 
making  fools  of  poor  peasants,  in  wartime  just 
the  same  as  in  peacetime — all  of  them,  the 
great  doctor  as  well  as  the  fine  ladies  in  their 
dazzling  white  gowns  and  with  their  silly  af- 


HOME  AGAIN  227 

fected  talk.  Heaven  knows  it  was  no  great 
trick  to  bamboozle  a  simple  coachman,  who  had 
managed  with  only  the  greatest  pains  to  learn  a 
bit  of  reading  and  writing.  They  had  smiled 
and  simpered  at  him  and  were  so  nice  and  had 
promised  him  such  a  paradise.  And  now,  here 
he  was  helpless,  left  all  alone  to  himself,  a  lost 
man. 

With  a  furious  curse,  he  tore  off  his  hat  and 
threw  it  on  the  seat. 

Was  that  the  face  of  a  human  being?  Was 
it  permitted  to  do  such  a  thing  to  a  man?  His 
nose  looked  like  a  patchwork  of  small  dice  of 
different  colors.  His  mouth  was  awry,  and  the 
whole  left  cheek  was  like  a  piece  of  bloated  raw 
meat,  red  and  criss-crossed  with  deep  scars. 
Ugh !  How  ugly !  A  fright !  And  besides,  in- 
stead of  a  cheekbone,  he  had  a  long  hollow, 
deep  enough  to  hold  a  man's  finger.  And  it 
was  for  this  he  had  let  himself  be  tortured  so? 
For  this  he  had  let  himself  be  enticed  seven- 
teen times,  like  a  patient  sheep,  into  that  con- 
founded room  with  the  glass  walls  and  the  shin- 


228  MEN  IN  WAR 

ing  instruments?  A  shudder  ran  down  his 
back  at  the  recollection  of  the  tortures  he  had 
gone  through  with  clenched  teeth,  just  to  look 
like  a  human  being  again  and  be  able  to  go 
back  home  to  his  bride. 

And  now  he  was  home. 

The  train  pulled  out  of  the  tunnel,  the  whis- 
tle blew,  and  the  dwarf  acacias  in  front  of  the 
station-master's  hut  sent  a  greeting  through  the 
window.  Grimly  John  Bogdan  dragged  his 
heavy  bag  through  the  train  corridor,  de- 
scended the  steps  hesitatingly,  and  stood  there 
at  a  loss,  looking  around  for  help  as  the  train 
rolled  on  behind  his  back. 

He  took  out  his  large  flowered  handkerchief 
and  wiped  off  the  heavy  beads  of  perspiration 
from  his  forehead.  What  was  he  to  do  now? 
Why  had  he  come  here  at  all?  Now  that  he 
had  finally  set  foot  again  on  the  home  soil  for 
which  he  had  yearned  so  ardently,  a  great 
longing  came  over  him  for  the  hospital,  which 
he  had  left  that  very  morning,  only  a  few  hours 
before,  full  of  rejoicing.  He  thought  of  the 


HOME  AGAIN  229 

long  ward  with  all  those  men  wrapped  in  ban- 
dages who  limped  and  hobbled,  lame,  blind  or 
disfigured.  There  nobody  was  revolted  by  the 
sight  of  his  mutilated  face,  no  indeed.  On  the 
contrary,  most  of  them  envied  him.  He  was  at 
least  capable  of  going  back  to  work,  his  arms 
and  legs  were  sound,  and  his  right  eye  was 
perfect.  Many  would  have  been  ready  to  ex- 
change places  with  him.  Some  had  begrudged 
him  his  lot  and  said  it  was  wrong  for  the  gov- 
ernment to  have  granted  him  a  pension  on  ac- 
count of  losing  his  left  eye.  One  eye  and  a 
face  a  little  scratched  up — what  was  that 
compared  with  a  wooden  leg,  a  crippled  arm, 
or  a  perforated  lung,  which  wheezed  and  rat- 
tled like  a  poor  machine  at  the  slightest  exer- 
tion? 

Among  the  many  cripples  in  the  hospital 
John  Bogdan  was  looked  upon  as  a  lucky 
devil,  a  celebrity.  Everybody  knew  his  story. 
The  visitors  to  the  hospital  wanted  first  of  all 
to  see  the  man  who  had  had  himself  operated 
on  seventeen  tinies  and  the  skin  cut  away  in 


230  MEN  IN  WAR 

bands  from  his  back,  his  chest,  and  his  thighs. 
After  each  operation,  as  soon  as  the  bandages 
were  removed,  the  door  to  his  ward  never  re- 
mained shut,  a  hundred  opinions  were  pro- 
nounced, and  every  newcomer  was  given  a  de- 
tailed description  of  how  terrible  his  face  had 
been  before.  The  few  men  who  had  shared 
Bogdan's  room  with  him  from  the  start  de- 
scribed the  former  awfulness  of  his  face  with 
a  sort  of  pride,  as  though  they  had  taken  part 
in  the  successful  operations. 

Thus  John  Bogdan  had  gradually  become 
almost  vain  of  his  shocking  mutilation  and  the 
progress  of  the  beautifying  process.  And  when 
he  left  the  hospital,  it  was  with  the  expectation 
of  being  admired  as  a  sensation  in  his  village. 

And  now? 

Alone  in  the  world,  with  no  relatives  to  go 
to,  with  nothing  but  his  knapsack  and  his  little 
trunk,  the  brilliant  sunlight  of  the  Hungarian 
plain  country  flooding  down  on  him,  and  the 
village  stretching  away  to  a  distance  before 
him,  John  Bogdan  suddenly  felt  himself  a  prey 


HOME  AGAIN  231 

to  timidity,  to  a  terror  that  he  had  not  known 
amid  the  bursting  of  the  shells,  the  most  violent 
charges,  the  most  ferocious  hand-to-hand  en- 
counters. His  inert  peasant  intellect,  his  na- 
ture crudely  compounded  of  wilfulness  and 
vanity,  had  always  been  a  stranger  to  deep- 
going  reflections.  Yet  an  instinctive  misgiv- 
ing, the  sense  of  distrust  and  hostility  that  over- 
whelmed him,  told  him  plainly  enough  that  he 
was  about  to  face  disillusionment  and  mortifi- 
cation such  as  he  had  not  dreamed  of  in  the 
hospital. 

He  lifted  his  luggage  to  his  back  dejectedly 
and  walked  toward  the  exit  with  hesitating 
steps.  There,  in  the  shadow  of  the  dusty  aca- 
cias that  he  had  seen  grow  up  and  that  had 
seen  him  grow  up,  he  felt  himself  confronted 
with  his  former  self,  with  the  handsome  John 
Bogdan  who  was  known  in  the  village  as  the 
smart  coachman  of  the  manor.  A  lot  of  good 
were  all  the  operations  and  patchwork  now. 
The  thing  now  was  the  painful  contrast  be- 
tween the  high-spirited,  forward  lad,  who  on 


282  MEN  IN  WAR 

this  spot  had  sung  out  a  last  hoarse  farewell 
to  his  sweetheart,  Marcsa,  on  the  first  day  of 
mobilization,  and  the  disfigured  creature  who 
was  standing  in  front  of  the  same  railroad  sta- 
tion with  one  eye  gone,  a  shattered  cheekbone,  a 
patched-up  cheek,  and  half  a  nose,  embittered 
and  cast  down,  as  if  it  were  only  that  morn- 
ing that  he  had  met  with  the  misfortune. 

At  the  small  grille  gate  stood  the  wife  of  the 
station-guard,  Kovacs — since  the  beginning  of 
the  war  Kovacs  himself  had  been  somewhere 
on  the  Russian  front — talking  and  holding  the 
ticket-puncher,  impatiently  waiting  for  the  last 
passenger  to  pass  through.  John  Bogdan  saw 
her,  and  his  heart  began  to  beat  so  violently 
that  he  involuntarily  lingered  at  each  step. 
Would  she  recognize  him,  or  would  she  not? 
His  knee  joints  gave  way  as  if  they  had  sud- 
denly decayed,  and  his  hand  trembled  as  he 
held  out  the  ticket. 

She  took  the  ticket  and  let  him  pass  through 
— without  a  wordl 

Poor  John  Bogdan's  breath  stopped  short. 


HOME  AGAIN  238 

But  he  pulled  himself  together  with  all  his 
might,  looked  her  firmly  in  the  face  with  his 
one  eye  and  said,  with  a  painful  effort  to  steady 
his  voice: 

"How  do  you  do?" 

"How  do  you  do?"  the  woman  rejoined.  He 
encountered  her  eyes,  saw  them  widen  into  a 
stare,  saw  them  grope  over  his  mangled  face, 
and  then  quickly  turn  in  another  direction,  as 
if  she  could  not  bear  the  sight.  He  wanted  to 
stop,  but  he  noticed  her  lips  quiver  and  heard 
a  murmured  "Jesus,  son  of  Mary,"  as  if  he 
were  the  devil  incarnate.  And  he  tottered  on, 
deeply  wounded. 

"She  did  not  recognize  me!"  the  blood  ham- 
mered in  his  ears.  "She  did  not  recognize  me 
— did  not  recognize  me!"  He  dragged  himself 
to  the  bench  opposite  the  station,  threw  his 
luggage  to  the  ground  and  sank  down  on  the 
seat. 

She  did  not  recognize  him!  The  wife  of 
Kovacs,  the  station-guard,  did  not  recognize 
John  Bogdan.  The  house  of  her  parents  stood 


234  MEN  IN  WAR 

next  to  the  house  of  his  parents.  She  and  he 
had  gone  to  school  together,  they  had  been  con- 
firmed together.  He  had  held  her  in  his  arms 
and  kissed  and  kissed  her,  heaven  knows  how 
many  times,  before  Kovacs  came  to  the  village 
to  woo  her.  And  she  had  not  recognized  him! 
Not  even  by  his  voice,  so  great  was  the  change. 

He  glanced  over  at  her  again  involuntarily, 
and  saw  her  talking  eagerly  with  the  station- 
master.  From  her  gestures,  he  guessed  she  was 
telling  of  the  horrible  sight  she  had  just  seen, 
the  stranger  soldier  so  hideously  disfigured. 
He  uttered  a  short  croaking  sound,  an  abortive 
curse,  and  then  his  head  fell  on  his  chest,  and 
he  sobbed  like  a  deserted  woman. 

What  was  he  to  do?  Go  up  to  the  castle, 
open  the  door  to  the  servants'  quarters,  and  call 
out  a  saucy  "Hello,  Marcsa"  to  the  astonished 
girl? 

That  was  the  way  he  had  always  thought  of 
it.  The  devil  knows  how  often  he  had  painted 
the  picture  to  the  dot — the  maids'  screaming, 
Marcsa's  cry  of  delight,  her  flinging  her  arms 


HOME  AGAIN  235 

about  his  neck,  and  the  thousand  questions  that 
would  come  pouring  down  on  him,  while  he 
would  sit  there  with  Marcsa  on  his  knees,  and 
now  and  then  throw  out  a  casual  reply  to  his 
awed,  attentive  listeners. 

But  now — how  about  it  now?  Go  to  Marcsa? 
He?  With  that  face,  the  face  that  had  made 
Julia,  the  station-guard's  wife,  cross  herself 
in  fright?  Wasn't  Marcsa  famed  throughout 
the  county  for  her  sharp  tongue  and  haughty 
ways  ?  She  had  snubbed  the  men  by  the  score, 
laughed  at  them,  made  fools  of  them  all,  until 
she  finally  fell  in  love  with  him. 

John  Bogdan  thrust  his  fist  into  his  mouth 
and  dug  his  teeth  into  the  flesh,  until  the  pain 
of  it  at  length  helped  him  subdue  his  sobbing. 
Then  he  buried  his  head  in  his  hands  and  tried 
to  think. 

Never  in  his  life  had  anything  gone  amiss 
with  him.  He  had  always  been  liked,  at  school, 
in  the  castle,  and  even  in  the  barracks.  He  had 
gone  through  life  whistling  contentedly,  a 
good-looking  alert  lad,  an  excellent  jockey, 


286  MEN  IN  WAR 

and  a  coachman  who  drove  with  style  and  loved 
his  horses,  as  his  horses  loved  him.  When  he 
deigned  to  toss  a  kiss  to  the  women  as  he  dashed 
by,  he  was  accustomed  to  see  a  flattered  smile 
come  to  their  faces.  Only  with  Marcsa  did  it 
take  a  little  longer.  But  she  was  famous  for 
her  beauty  far  and  wide.  Even  John's  mas- 
ter, the  lord  of  the  castle,  had  patted  him  on 
the  shoulder  almost  enviously  when  Marcsa  and 
he  had  become  engaged. 

"A  handsome  couple,"  the  pastor  had  said. 

John  Bogdan  groped  again  for  the  little  mir- 
ror in  his  pocket  and  then  sat  with  drooping 
body,  oppressed  by  a  profound  melancholy. 
That  thing  in  the  glass  was  to  be  the  bride- 
groom of  the  beautiful  Marcsa?  What  did  that 
ape's  face,  that  piece  of  patchwork,  that  check- 
erboard which  the  damned  quack,  the  impostor, 
whom  they  called  a  distinguished  medical  au- 
thority, a  celebrated  doctor,  had  basted  to- 
gether— what  did  it  have  to  do  with  that  John 
Bogdan  whom  Marcsa  had  promised  to  marry 
and  whom  she  had  accompanied  to  the  station 


HOME  AGAIN  237 

crying  when  he  had  gone  off  to  the  war?  For 
Marcsa  there  was  only  one  John  Bogdan,  the 
one  that  was  coachman  to  the  lord  of  the  castle 
and  the  handsomest  man  in  the  village.  .Was 
he  still  coachman?  The  lord  would  take  care 
not  to  disgrace  his  magnificent  pair  with  such 
a  scarecrow  or  drive  to  the  county  seat  with 
such  a  monstrosity  on  the  box.  Haying — that's 
what  they  would  put  him  to — cleaning  out  the 
dung  from  the  stables.  And  Marcsa,  the  beau- 
tiful Marcsa  whom  all  the  men  were  vying  for, 
would  she  be  the  wife  of  a  miserable  day  la- 
borer? iff!? 

No,  of  this  John  Bogda"n  was  certain,  the 
man  sitting  on  the  bench  there  was  no  longer 
John  Bogdan  to  Marcsa.  She  would  not  have 
him  now — no  more  than  the  lord  would  have 
him  on  the  coachman's  box.  A  cripple  is  a 
cripple,  and  Marcsa  had  engaged  herself  to 
John  Bogdan,  not  to  the  fright  that  he  was 
bringing  back  home  to  her. 

His  melancholy  gradually  gave  way  to  an 
ungovernable  fury  against  those  people  in  the 


238  MEN  IN  WAR 

city  who  had  given  him  all  that  buncombe  and 
talked  him  into  heaven  knows  what.  Marcsa 
should  be  proud  because  he  had  been  disfigured 
in  the  service  of  his  fatherland.  Proud  ?  Ha- 
ha! 

He  laughed  scornfully,  and  his  fingers  tight- 
ened convulsively  about  the  cursed  mirror,  un- 
til the  glass  broke  into  bits  and  cut  his  hand. 
The  blood  trickled  slowly  down  his  sleeves 
without  his  noticing  it,  so  great  was  his  rage 
against  that  bunch  of  aristocratic  ladies  in  the 
hospital  whose  twaddle  had  deprived  him  of 
his  reason.  They  probably  thought  that  a  man 
with  one  eye  and  half  a  nose  was  good  enough 
for  a  peasant  girl?  Fatherland?  Would 
Marcsa  go  to  the  altar  with  the  fatherland? 
Could  she  show  off  the  fatherland  to  the  wom- 
en when  she  would  see  them  looking  at  her 
pityingly?  Did  the  fatherland  drive  through 
the  village  with  ribbons  flying  from  its  hat? 
Ridiculous ! 

Sitting  on  the  bench  opposite  the  station, 
with  the  sign  of  the  village  in  view,  a  short 


HOME  AGAIN  239 

name,  a  single  word,  which  comprised  his  whole 
life,  all  his  memories,  hopes  and  experiences, 
John  Bogdan  suddenly  thought  of  one  of  the 
village  characters,  Peter  the  cripple,  who  had 
lived  in  the  tumbledown  hut  behind  the  mill 
many  years  before,  when  John  was  still  a  child. 
John  saw  him  quite  distinctly,  standing  there 
with  his  noisy  wooden  leg  and  his  sad,  starved, 
emaciated  face.  He,  too,  had  sacrificed  a  part 
of  himself,  his  leg,  "for  the  fatherland,"  in 
Bosnia  during  the  occupation ;  and  then  he  had 
had  to  live  in  the  old  hovel  all  alone,  made  fun 
of  by  the  children,  who  imitated  his  walk,  and 
grumblingly  tolerated  by  the  peasants,  who 
resented  the  imposition  of  this  burden  upon  the 
community.  "In  the  service  of  the  father- 
land." Never  had  the  "fatherland"  been  men- 
tioned when  Peter  the  cripple  went  by.  They 
called  him  contemptuously  the  village  pauper, 
and  that  was  all  there  was  to  it. 

John  Bogdan  gnashed  his  teeth  in  a  rage 
that  he  had  not  thought  of  Peter  the  cripple 
in  the  hospital.  Then  he  would  have  given 


240  MEN  IN  WAR 

those  city  people  a  piece  of  his  mind.  He 
would  have  told  them  what  he  thought  of  their 
silly,  prattling  humbug  about  the  fatherland 
and  about  the  great  honor  it  was  to  return 
home  to  Marcsa  looking  like  a  monkey.  If  he 
had  the  doctor  in  his  clutches  now  1  The  fakir 
had  photographed  him,  not  once,  but  a  dozen 
times,  from  all  sides,  after  each  butchery,  as 
though  he  had  accomplished  a  miracle,  had 
turned  out  a  wonderful  masterpiece.  And 
here  Julia,  even  Julia,  his  playmate,  his  neigh- 
bor, had  not  recognized  him. 

So  deep  was  John  Bogdan  sunk  in  his  misr 
ery,  so  engulfed  in  grim  plans  of  vengeance, 
that  he  did  not  notice  a  man  who  had  been 
standing  in  front  of  him  for  several  minutes, 
eyeing  him  curiously  from  every  angle. 
Suddenly  a  voice  woke  him  up  out  of  his  brood- 
ing, and  a  hot  wave  surged  into  his  face,  and 
his  heart  stood  still  with  delighted  terror,  as  he 
heard  some  one  say: 

"Is  that  you,  Bogdan?" 

He  raised  himself,  happy  at  having  been  rec- 


HOME  AGAIN  241 

ognized  after  all.  But  the  next  moment  he 
knitted  his  brows  in  complete  disappointment. 
It  was  Mihaly  the  humpback. 

There  was  no  other  man  in  the  whole  vil- 
lage, even  in  the  whole  county,  whose  hand 
John  Bogdan  would  not  at  that  moment  have 
grasped  cordially  in  a  surge  of  gratitude.  But 
this  humpback — he  never  had  wanted  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  him,  and  now  certainly 
not.  The  fellow  might  imagine  he  had  found 
a  comrade,  and  was  probably  glad  that  he  was 
no  longer  the  only  disfigured  person  in  the 
place. 

"Yes,  it's  I.     Well?" 

The  humpback's  small,  piercing  eyes 
searched  Bogdan's  scarred  face  curiously,  and 
he  shook  his  head  in  pity. 

"Well,  well,  the  Russians  certainly  have  done 
you  up." 

Bogdan  snarled  at  him  like  a  vicious  cur. 

"It's  none  of  your  business.  What  right 
have  you  to  talk?  If  I  had  come  into  the 
world  like  you,  with  my  belly  on  my  back,  the 


242  MEN  IN  WAR 

Russians  couldn't  have  done  anything  to  me." 

The  humpback  seated  himself  quietly  beside 
John  without  showing  the  least  sign  of  being 
insulted. 

"The  war  hasn't  made  you  any  politer,  I  can 
see  that,"  he  remarked  drily.  "You're  not 
exactly  in  a  happy  frame  of  mind,  which  does 
not  surprise  me.  Yes,  that's  the  way  it  is. 
The  poor  people  must  give  up  their  sound 
flesh  and  bone  so  that  the  enemy  should  not 
deprive  the  rich  of  their  superfluity.  You  may 
bless  your  stars  you  came  out  of  it  as  well  as 
you  did." 

"I  do,"  Bogdan  growled  with  a  glance  of 
hatred.  "The  shells  don't  ask  if  you  are  rich 
or  poor.  Counts  and  barons  are  lying  out 
there,  rotting  in  the  sun  like  dead  beasts.  Any 
man  that  God  has  not  smitten  in  his  cradle  so 
that  he's  not  fit  to  be  either  a  man  or  a  woman 
is  out  in  the  battlefield  now,  whether  he's  as 
poor  as  a  church  mouse  or  used  to  eating  from 
golden  plates." 


HOME  AGAIN  243 

The  humpback  cleared  his  throat  and 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"There  are  all  sorts  of  people,"  he  observed, 
and  was  about  to  add  something  else,  but  be- 
thought himself  and  remained  silent. 

This  Bogdan  always  had  had  the  soul  of  a 
flunkey,  proud  of  being  allowed  to  serve  the 
high  and  mighty  and  feeling  solid  with  his 
oppressors  because  he  was  allowed  to  con- 
tribute to  their  pomp  in  gold-laced  livery  and 
silver  buttons.  His  masters  had  sicked  him  on 
to  face  the  cannons  in  defense  of  their  own 
wealth,  and  now  the  man  sat  there  disfigured, 
with  only  one  eye,  and  still  would  not  permit 
any  criticism  of  his  gracious  employers. 
Against  such  stupidity  there  was  nothing  to  be 
done.  There  was  no  use  wasting  a  single  word 
on  him. 

The  two  remained  sitting  for  a  while  in 
silence.  Bogdan  filled  his  pipe  carefully  and 
deliberately,  and  Mihaly  watched  him  with  in- 
terest. 

"Are  you  going  to  the  castle?"  the  hump- 


244  MEN  IN  WAR 

back  asked  cautiously,  when  the  pipe  was  at 
last  lit. 

John  Bogdan  was  well  aware  just  what  the 
hateful  creature  was  aiming  at.  He  knew  him. 
A  Socialist — that's  what  he  was,  one  of  those 
good-for-nothings  who  take  the  bread  out  of 
poor  people's  mouths  by  dinning  a  lot  of  non- 
sense into  their  ears,  just  like  a  mean  dog  who 
snaps  at  the  hand  that  feeds  him.  He  had 
made  a  good  living  as  foreman  in  the  brick- 
yard, and  as  thanks  he  had  incited  all  the  work- 
men against  the  owner,  Bogdan's  master,  until 
they  demanded  twice  as  much  wages,  and  were 
ready  to  set  fire  to  the  castle  on  all  four  cor- 
ners. Once  Mihaly  had  tried  his  luck  with 
him,  too.  He  had  wanted  to  make  his  master 
out  a  bad  man.  But  this  time  he  had  bucked 
up  against  the  right  person.  A  box  on  his 
right  ear  and  a  box  on  his  left  ear,  and  then  a 
good  sound  kick — that  was  the  answer  to  keep 
him  from  ever  again  trying  to  make  a  Social- 
ist of  John  Bogdan,  one  of  those  low  fellows 
who  know  no  God  or  fatherland. 


HOME  AGAIN  245 

Mihaly  moved  on  the  bench  uneasily,  every 
now  and  then  scrutinizing  his  neighbor  from 
the  side.  At  last  he  plucked  up  courage  and 
said  suddenly: 

"They'll  probably  be  glad  up  there  that  you 
are  back.  Your  arms  are  still  whole,  and  they 
need  people  in  the  factory." 

Bogdan  turned  up  his  nose. 

"In  the  brickyard?"  he  asked  disdainfully. 

The  humpback  burst  out  laughing. 

"Brickyard?  Brickyard  is  good.  Who 
needs  bricks  in  war?  The  brickyard's  gone 
long  ago,  man.  Do  you  see  those  trucks  over 
there?  They  are  all  loaded  up  with  shells. 
Every  Saturday  a  whole  train  of  shells  leaves 
here." 

Bogdan  listened  eagerly.  That  was  news. 
A  change  on  the  estate  of  which  he  had  not  yet 
heard. 

"You  see,  there  is  such  a  nice  division," 
Mihaly  continued,  smiling  sarcastically.  "One 
goes  away  and  lets  his  head  be  blown  off.  The 
other  remains  comfortably  at  home  and  manu- 


246  MEN  IN  WAR 

factures  shells  and  decorates  his  castle  with 
thousand-dollar  bills.  Well,  I'm  satisfied." 

"What  are  we  to  do,  eh,  shoot  with  peas  or 
with  air?  You  can't  carry  on  a  war  without 
shells.  Shells  are  needed  just  as  much  as 
soldiers." 

"Exactly.  And  because  the  rich  have  the 
choice  of  being  soldiers  or  making  shells,  they 
choose  to  make  the  shells  and  send  you  off  to 
have  your  head  blown  off.  What  are  you  get- 
ting for  your  eye?  Twenty-five  dollars  a 
year?  Or  perhaps  as  much  as  fifty?  And  the 
others  whom  the  ravens  are  feeding  on  don't 
get  even  that  out  of  the  war.  But  the  gentle- 
man up  in  the  castle  is  making  his  five  hun- 
dred a  day  and  doesn't  risk  even  his  little  finger 
doing  it.  I'd  be  a  patriot  on  those  terms  my- 
self. I  am  telling  you  the  truth.  At  first,  of 
course,  they  said  he  was  going  to  war,  and  he 
did  actually  ride  off  in  great  state,  but  three 
weeks  later  he  was  back  here  again  with  ma- 
chines and  all  the  equipment,  and  now  he  de- 
livers fine  orations  in  the  townhouse  and  sends 


HOME  AGAIN  247 

other  men  off  to  die — and  on  top  of  it  is  gallant 
to  the  wives  left  behind.  He  stuffs  his  pockets 
and  fools  with  every  girl  in  the  factory.  He's 
the  cock  of  the  whole  district." 

Bogdan,  his  brows  knit  in  annoyance,  let  the 
man  talk  on.  But  the  last  part  struck  him 
with  a  shock.  He  pricked  up  his  ears  and 
grew  uneasy  and  for  a  while  struggled  heroi- 
cally against  asking  a  question  that  burned  on 
his  lips.  But  in  the  end  he  could  not  restrain 
himself  and  blurted  out : 

"Is — is  Marcsa  working  in  the  factory, 
too?" 

The  humpback's  eyes  flashed. 

"Marcsa,  the  beautiful  Marcsa!  I  should 
say  so!  She's  been  made  a  forelady,  though 
they  say  she's  never  had  a  shell  in  her  hands, 
but,  to  make  up,  the  lord's  hands  have— 

With  a  short,  hoarse  growl  John  Bogdan 
flew  at  the  humpback's  throat,  squeezed  in  his 
Adam's  apple,  pressing  it  into  his  neck,  and 
held  him  in  a  merciless  clutch.  The  man  beat 
about  with  his  arms,  his  eyes  popped  from  his 


248  MEN  IN  WAR 

head  in  fright,  his  throat  gurgled,  and  his  face 
turned  livid.  Then  John  Bogdan  released  his 
hold,  and  Mihaly  fell  to  the  ground  and  lay 
there  gasping.  Bogdan  quickly  gathered  up 
his  things  and  strode  off,  taking  long,  quick 
steps,  as  if  afraid  of  arriving  too  late  for  some- 
thing in  the  castle. 

He  gave  not  another  look  hack  at  Mihaly 
the  humpback,  never  turned  around  once,  but 
quietly  went  his  way  and  for  a  long  while  felt 
the  warm  throat  in  his  hand. 

What  was  a  man  who  lay  gasping  on  the 
road  to  him?  One  man  more  or  less.  In  the 
rhythmic  regularity  of  the  marching  column, 
he  had  passed  by  thousands  like  him,  and  it  had 
never  occurred  to  his  mind,  dulled  by  weari- 
ness, that  the  grey  spots  thickly  strewn  over 
the  fields,  the  heaps  lining  the  roadway  like 
piles  of  dung  in  the  spring,  were  human  be- 
ings struck  down  by  death.  He  and  his  com- 
rades had  waded  in  the  dead,  there  at  Kielce, 
when  they  made  a  dash  across  the  fields,  and 
earthy  grey  hands  rose  out  of  every  furrow 


HOME  AGAIN  249 

pawing  the  air,  and  trousers  drenched  in  blood 
and  distorted  faces  grew  out  of  the  ground, 
as  if  all  the  dead  were  scrambling  from  their 
graves  for  the  Last  Judgment.  They  had 
stepped  and  stumbled  over  corpses.  Once  the 
fat  little  officer  of  reserves,  to  the  great  amuse- 
ment of  his  company,  had  gotten  deathly  sick 
at  his  stomach  because  he  had  inadvertently 
stepped  on  the  chest  of  a  half-decayed  Russian, 
and  the  body  had  given  way  under  him,  and 
he  had  scarcely  been  able  to  withdraw  his  foot 
from  the  foul  hole.  John  Bogdan  smiled  as  he 
recalled  the  wicked  jokes  the  men  had  cracked 
at  the  officer's  expense,  how  the  officer  had  gone 
all  white  and  leaned  against  a  tree  and  carried 
on  like  a  man  who  has  much  more  than 
quenched  his  thirst. 

The  road  glowed  in  the  mid-day  sun.  The 
village  clock  struck  twelve.  From  the  hill  yon- 
der came,  like  an  answer,  the  deep  bellow  of 
the  factory  whistle,  and  a  little  white  cloud 
rose  over  the  tops  of  the  trees.  Bogdan  quick- 
ened his  pace,  running  rather  than  walking, 


250  MEN  IN  WAR 

heedless  of  the  drops  of  sweat  that  ran  down 
and  tickled  his  neck.  For  almost  a  year  he  had 
breathed  nothing  but  the  hospital  atmosphere, 
had  smelled  nothing  but  iodoform  and  lysol 
and  seen  nothing  but  roofs  and  walls.  His 
lungs  drew  in  the  aroma  of  the  blossoming 
meadows  with  deep  satisfaction,  and  the  soles 
of  his  boots  tramped  the  ground  sturdily,  as 
if  he  were  again  marching  in  regular  order. 

This  was  the  first  walk  he  had  taken  since 
he  was  wounded,  the  first  road  he  had  seen 
since  those  wild  marches  on  Russian  soil.  At 
moments  he  seemed  to  hear  the  cannons  roar- 
ing. The  short  struggle  with  the  humpback 
had  set  his  blood  coursing,  and  his  memories  of 
the  war,  for  a  time  stifled  as  it  were  beneath  a 
layer  of  dust  by  the  dreary  monotony  of  the 
hospital  life,  suddenly  came  whirling  back  to 
him. 

He  almost  regretted  having  let  that  damned 
blackguard  go  so  soon.  One  moment  more, 
and  he  would  never  have  opened  his  blasphem- 
ous mouth  again.  His  head  would  have  fallen 


HOME  AGAIN  251 

back  exhausted  to  one  side,  he  would  once  again 
have  embraced  the  air  longingly  with  outspread 
fingers,  and  then  in  a  flash  would  have  shrunk 
together,  exactly  like  the  fat,  messy  Russian 
with  the  large  blue  eyes  who  was  the  first  man 
to  present  himself  to  St.  Peter  with  a  greeting 
from  John  Bogdan.  Bogdan  had  not  let  him 
loose  until  he  had  altogether  quit  squirming. 
He  had  choked  him  dead  as  a  doornail.  And 
still  he  was  a  comical  fellow,  not  nearly  so  dis- 
gusting as  that  rascally  humpback.  But  he 
was  the  first  enemy  soldier  whom  he  had  got 
into  his  grasp,  his  very  first  Russian.  A  mag- 
nificent array  of  others  had  followed,  though 
the  fat  man  was  the  only  one  Bogdan  had 
choked  to  death.  He  had  smashed  scores  with 
the  butt-end  of  his  gun  and  run  his  bayonet 
through  scores  of  others.  He  had  even 
squashed  with  his  boots  the  wretch  who  had 
struck  down  his  dearest  comrade  before  his 
very  eyes.  But  never  again  did  he  choke  a 
man  to  death.  That  was  why  the  little  fat  fel- 
low stuck  in  his  memory.  He  had  no  recol- 


252  MEN  IN  WAR 

lection  of  the  others  whatever.  All  he  saw  now 
in  his  mind  was  a  tangle  of  greyish-green  uni- 
forms. And  as  he  thought  of  his  heroic  deeds, 
the  gnashing,  the  stamping,  the  gasping,  and 
the  cursing  of  the  hand-to-hand  encounters  re- 
sounded in  his  ears.  How  many,  he  wondered, 
had  he  sent  to  the  other  world?  God  alone 
may  have  counted  them.  He  himself  had  had 
enough  to  do  trying  to  save  his  own  skin. 
Had  a  man  stopped  to  look  around,  he  would 
have  carried  his  curiosity  to  the  next  world. 

And  yet — there  was  another  face  that  re- 
mained fixed  in  his  memory.  A  great  big  thin 
fellow,  as  tall  as  a  beanpole,  with  enormous 
yellow  tusks,  which  he  gnashed  like  a  boar. 
Yes,  he  had  as  clear  a  picture  of  him  as  if 
it  had  been  yesterday.  He  saw  him  half- 
backed  up  against  the  wall  already,  swinging 
his  gun  over  his  head.  One  second  more,  and 
the  butt-end  would  have  come  whizzing  down. 
But  a  sleepy  Russian  was  never  the  man  to 
get  the  better  of  John  Bogdan.  Before  he 
had  the  chance  to  bring  down  his  gun,  Bog- 


HOME  AGAIN  253 

dan's  bayonet  was  in  between  his  ribs,  and  the 
Russian  fell  over  on  his  own  gun.  The  bay- 
onet pierced  him  through  and  through,  and 
even  went  into  the  wall  behind  him,  and  came 
mighty  near  breaking  off. 

But  the  same  thing  never  happened  to  Bog- 
dan  again.  It  had  happened  that  once  be- 
cause he  had  thrust  too  hard,  with  clenched 
teeth,  gripping  the  rod  in  a  tight  clutch,  as  if  it 
were  iron  that  he  had  to  cleave.  The  fact  was, 
he  had  not  yet  discovered  that  it  really  isn't  so 
difficult  to  mow  down  a  human  being.  He  had 
been  prepared  for  any  amount  of  resistance, 
and  his  bayonet  had  glided  into  the  fellow's 
body  like  butter.  His  mouth  had  remained 
wide  open  in  astonishment — he  recalled  it  to 
the  dot.  A  man  who  has  never  tried  a  bayonet 
thrust  thinks  a  human  being  is  made  up  all 
of  bones,  and  he  fetches  out  for  a  good  hard 
stroke.  Then  he's  in  a  pickle  to  free  his 
weapon  again  before  one  of  the  messy-looking 
devils  takes  advantage  of  his  defenselessness. 
The  way  to  do  was  to  go  at  it  very  lightly,  with 


254  MEN  IN  WAR 

a  short  jerky  thrust.  Then  the  blade  ran  in 
of  itself,  like  a  good  horse — you  actually  had 
trouble  holding  it  back.  The  most  important 
thing  was,  not  to  take  your  eye  off  your 
enemy.  You  mustn't  look  at  your  bayonet,  or 
the  spot  you  intend  to  pierce.  You  must  al- 
ways watch  your  enemy  so  as  to  guess  his  move 
in  time.  It's  from  your  enemy's  face  that  you 
must  read  the  right  moment  for  stepping  back- 
ward. They  all  behaved  the  same  way — ex- 
actly like  the  first  tall  wild  fellow  who  gnashed 
his  tusks.  All  of  a  sudden  their  faces  turned 
absolutely  smooth,  as  if  the  cold  iron  in  their 
body  had  chilled  their  fury,  their  eyes  opened 
wide  in  astonishment  and  looked  at  their  enemy 
as  if  to  ask  in  reproach,  "What  are  you  do- 
ing?" Then  they  usually  clutched  at  the  bay- 
onet and  needlessly  cut  their  fingers,  too,  be- 
fore they  fell  over  dead.  If  you  didn't  know 
exactly  what  to  do  and  didn't  hold  your  weapon 
back  in  time  and  withdraw  it  quickly  from  the 
wound,  just  when  you  saw  the  man's  eyes 
growing  large,  you  would  be  carried  along 


HOME  AGAIN  255 

down  with  him  or  would  get  hit  on  the  head  by 
the  butt-end  of  another  enemy's  gun  long  be- 
fore you  could  draw  your  bayonet  out. 

These  were  all  things  that  John  Bogdan  had 
often  discussed  with  his  comrades  after  severe 
frays  when  they  criticized  the  men  who  had 
fallen  for  behaving  stupidly  and  who  had  had 
to  pay  with  their  lives  for  their  awkwardness. 

As  he  strode  along  in  haste  up  the  familiar 
road  to  the  castle,  he  was  fairly  lost  in  recol- 
lections. His  legs  moved  of  themselves,  like 
horses  on  the  homeward  way.  He  passed 
through  the  open  grille  gateway  and  was  al- 
ready walking  on  the  gravel  path,  his  head 
bowed  on  his  chest,  without  noticing  that  he 
had  reached  home. 

The  neighing  of  horses  woke  him  up  from  his 
thoughts  with  a  start.  He  stood  still,  deeply 
stirred  by  the  sight  of  the  stables,  only  a  few 
feet  away,  and  inside,  in  the  twilight,  the 
gleam  of  his  favorite  horse's  flanks.  He  was 
about  to  turn  off  the  path  and  make  for  the 
stable  door  when  far  away  down  below,  at  the 


256  MEN  IN  WAR 

other  end  of  the  large  place,  he  saw  a  woman 
coming  from  the  brickyard.  She  wore  a  dotted 
red  silk  kerchief  on  her  head  and  carried  her 
full  figure  proudly,  and  the  challenging  sway 
of  her  hips  billowed  her  wide  skirts  as  the  wind 
billows  a  field  of  ripe  grain. 

John  Bogdan  stood  stockstill,  as  if  some  one 
had  struck  him  on  the  chest.  It  was  Marcsa! 
There  was  not  another  girl  in  the  whole  coun- 
try who  walked  like  that.  He  threw  his  lug- 
gage to  the  ground  and  dashed  off. 

"Marcsa!  Marcsa!"  his  cry  thundered  out 
over  the  broad  courtyard. 

The  girl  turned  and  waited  for  his  approach, 
peering  curiously  through  half-closed  eyes. 
When  almost  face  to  face  with  her  Bogdan 
stood  still. 

"Marcsa!"  he  repeated  in  a  whisper,  his  gaze 
fastened  upon  her  face  anxiously.  He  saw  her 
turn  pale,  white  as  chalk,  saw  her  eyes  leap  to 
and  fro  uneasily,  from  his  left  cheek  to  his  right 
cheek,  and  back  again.  Then  horror  came  into 
her  eyes.  She  clapped  her  hands  to  her  face, 


HOME  AGAIN  257 

and  turned  and  ran  away  as  fast  as  her  legs 
would  carry  her. 

In  utter  sadness  Bogdan  stared  after  her. 
That  was  exactly  the  way  he  had  imagined  their 
meeting  again  since  Julia,  the  station-guard's 
wife,  the  woman  he  had  grown  up  with,  had 
not  recognized  him.  But  to  run  away !  That 
rankled.  No  need  for  her  to  run  away.  John 
Bogdan  was  not  the  man  to  force  himself  on  a 
woman.  If  he  no  longer  pleased  her  now  that 
he  was  disfigured,  well,  then  she  could  look  for 
another  man,  and  he,  too — he  would  find  an- 
other woman.  He  wasn't  bothered  about  that. 

This  was  what  he  had  wanted  to  tell  Marcsa. 

He  bounded  after  her  and  overtook  her  a  few 
feet  from  the  machine  shop. 

"Why  do  you  run  away  from  me?"  he 
growled,  breathless,  and  caught  her  hand. 
"If  you  don't  want  me  any  more,  you  need 
only  say  so.  What  do  you  think — I'm  going 
to  eat  you  up?" 

She  stared  at  him  searchingly — in  uncer- 


258  MEN  IN  WAR 

tainty.  He  almost  felt  sorry  for  her,  she  was 
trembling  so. 

"How  you  look !"  he  heard  her  stammer,  and 
he  turned  red  with  anger. 

"You  knew  it.  I  had  them  write  to  you 
that  a  shell  hit  me.  Did  you  think  it  made  me 
better-looking?  Just  speak  straight  out  if  you 
don't  want  me  any  more.  Straight  wine  is 
what  I  want,  no  mixture.  Yes  or  no?  I 
won't  force  you  to  marry  me.  Just  say  it 
right  away — yes  or  no?" 

Marcsa  was  silent.  There  was  something  in 
his  face,  in  his  one  eye,  that  took  her  breath 
away,  that  dug  into  her  vitals  like  cold  fin- 
gers. She  cast  her  eyes  down  and  stammered : 

"But  you  have  no  position  yet.     How  can  we 

marry?  You  must  first  ask  the  master  if 
v » 

It  was  as  if  a  red  pall  woven  of  flames 
dropped  in  front  of  John  Bogdan's  eyes.  The 
master?  What  was  she  saying  about  the  masj 
ter?  He  thought  of  the  humpback,  and  it 
came  to  him  in  a  flash  that  the  fellow  had  not 


HOME  AGAIN  259 

lied.  His  fingers  clutched  her  wrist  like  a  pair 
of  glowing  tongs,  so  that  she  cried  out  with 
the  pain. 

"The  master!"  Bogdan  bellowed.  "What 
has  the  master  got  to  do  between  you  and  me? 
Yes  or  no?  I  want  an  answer.  The  master 
has  nothing  to  do  with  us." 

Marcsa  drew  herself  up.  All  of  a  sudden 
a  remarkable  assurance  came  to  her.  The 
color  returned  to  her  cheeks,  and  her  eyes 
flashed  proudly.  She  stood  there  with  the 
haughty  bearing  so  familiar  to  Bogdan,  her 
head  held  high  in  defiance. 

Bogdan  observed  the  change  and  saw  that 
her  gaze  traveled  over  his  shoulder.  He  let 
go  her  hand  and  turned  instantly.  Just  what 
he  thought — the  master  coming  out  of  the 
machine  shop.  His  old  forester,  Toth,  fol- 
lowed him. 

Marcsa  bounded  past  Bogdan  like  a  cat  and 
ran  up  to  the  lord  and  bent  over  and  kissed  his 
hand. 

Bogdan  saw  the  three  of  them  draw  near  and 


260  MEN  IN  WAR 

lowered  his  head  like  a  ram  for  attack.  A  cold, 
determined  quiet  rose  in  him  slowly,  as  in  the 
trenches  when  the  trumpeter  gave  the  signal 
for  a  charge.  He  felt  the  lord's  hand  touch  his 
shoulder,  and  he  took  a  step  backward. 

What  was  the  meaning  of  it  all?  The  lord 
was  speaking  of  heroism  and  fatherland,  a  lot 
of  rubbish  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  Marcsa. 
He  let  him  go  on  talking,  let  the  words  pour 
down  on  him  like  rain,  without  paying  any  at- 
tention to  their  meaning.  His  glance  wan- 
dered to  and  fro  uneasily,  from  the  lord  to 
Marcsa  and  then  to  the  forester,  until  it  rested 
curiously  on  something  shining. 

It  was  the  nickeled  hilt  of  the  hunting-knife 
hanging  at  the  old  forester's  side  and  sparkling 
in  the  sunlight. 

"Like  a  bayonet,"  thought  Bogdan,  and  an 
idea  flashed  through  his  mind,  to  whip  the 
thing  out  of  the  scabbard  and  run  it  up  to  the 
hilt  in  the  hussy's  body.  But  her  rounded  hips, 
her  bright  billowing  skirts  confused  him.  In 
war  he  had  never  had  to  do  with  women.  He 


HOME  AGAIN  261 

could  not  exactly  imagine  what  it  would  be 
like  to  make  a  thrust  into  that  beskirted  body 
there.  His  glance  traveled  back  to  the  mas- 
ter, and  now  he  noticed  that  his  stiffnecked 
silence  had  pulled  him  up  short. 

"He  is  gnashing  his  teeth,"  it  struck  him, 
"just  like  the  tall  Russian."  And  he  almost 
smiled  at  a  vision  that  came  to  his  mind — of 
the  lord  also  getting  a  smooth  face  and  aston- 
ished, reproachful  eyes. 

But  hadn't  he  said  something  about  Marcsa 
just  then?  .What  was  Marcsa  to  him? 

Bogdan  drew  himself  up  defiantly. 

"I  will  arrange  matters  with  Marcsa  myself, 
sir.  It's  between  her  and  me,"  he  rejoined 
hoarsely,  and  looked  his  master  straight  in  the 
face.  He  still  had  his  mustache,  quite  even  on 
the  two  sides,  and  curling  delicately  upwards 
at  the  ends.  What  was  it  the  humpback  had 
said?  "One  man  goes  away  and  lets  his  head 
be  blown  off."  He  wasn't  so  stupid  after  all, 
the  humpback  wasn't. 

What  Bogdan  said  infuriated  the  master. 


262  MEN  IN  WAR 

Bogdan  let  him  shout  and  stared  like  a  man 
hypnotized  at  the  nickeled  hilt  of  the  hunting- 
knife.  It  was  not  until  the  name  "Marcsa" 
again  struck  his  ear  that  he  became  attentive. 

"Marcsa  is  in  my  employ  now,"  he  heard  the 
lord  saying.  "You  know  I  am  fond  of  you, 
Bogdan.  I'll  let  you  take  care  of  the  horses 
again,  if  you  care  to.  But  Marcsa  is  to  be  let 
alone.  I  won't  have  any  rumpus.  If  she  still 
wants  to  marry  you,  all  well  and  good.  But 
if  she  doesn't,  she's  to  be  let  alone.  If  I  hear 
once  again  that  you  have  annoyed  her,  I'll 
chase  you  to  the  devil.  Do  you  understand?" 

Foaming  with  rage,  Bogdan  let  out  the 
stream  of  his  wrath. 

"To  the  devil?"  he  shouted.  "You  chase  me 
to  the  devil?  You  had  first  better  go  there 
yourself.  I've  been  to  the  devil  already.  For 
eight  months  I  was  in  hell.  Here's  my  face— 
you  can  tell  from  my  face  that  I  come  from 
hell.  To  play  the  protector  here  and  stuff 
your  pockets  full  and  send  the  others  out  to 
die — that's  easy.  A  man  who  dawdles  at  home 


HOME  AGAIN  263 

has  no  right  to  send  men  to  the  devil  who  have 
already  been  in  hell  for  his  sake." 

So  overwhelming  was  his  indignation  that 
he  spoke  like  the  humpback  Socialist  and  was 
not  ashamed  of  it.  He  stood  there  ready  to 
leap,  with  tensely  drawn  muscles,  like  a  wild 
animal.  He  saw  the  lord  make  ready  to  strike 
him,  saw  his  distorted  face,  saw  the  riding- 
crop  flash  through  the  air,  and  even  saw  it 
descending  upon  him.  But  he  did  not  feel  the 
short,  hard  blow  on  his  back. 

With  one  bound  he  ripped  the  hunting- 
knife  out  of  the  scabbard  and  thrust  it  between 
the  lord's  ribs — not  with  a  long  sweep,  so  that 
some  one  could  have  stayed  his  arm  before  he 
struck.  Oh,  no!  But  quite  lightly,  from  be- 
low, with  a  short  jerk,  exactly  as  he  had  learned 
by  experience  in  battle.  The  hunting-knife 
was  as  good  as  his  bayonet.  It  ran  into  the 
flesh  like  butter. 

Then  everything  came  about  just  as  it  al- 
ways did.  John  Bogdan  stood  with  his  chin 
forward  and  saw  the  lord's  face  distorted  by 


264  MEN  IN  WAR 

anger  suddenly  smooth  out  and  turn  as  placid 
and  even  as  if  it  had  been  ironed.  He  saw  his 
eyes  widen  and  look  over  at  him  in  astonish- 
ment with  the  reproachful  question,  "What 
are  you  doing?"  The  one  thing  Bogdan  did 
not  see  was  the  collapsing  of  the  lord's  body, 
for  at  that  instant  a  blow  crashed  down  on  the 
back  of  his  head,  like  the  downpour  of  a  water- 
fall dropping  from  an  infinite  height.  For  one 
second  he  still  saw  Marcsa's  face  framed  in  a 
fiery  wheel,  then,  his  skull  split  open,  he  fell 
over  on  top  of  his  master,  whose  body  already 
lay  quivering  on  the  ground. 


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